This Week’s New Releases: August 13th

Our pick of this week’s releases starts with a return for Dead Can Dance. Anastasis follows on from last album Spiritchaser – released a full sixteen years ago. Scrobbled 17,655,541 times on Last.fm, the diverse act have been tagged as ambient, ethereal, darkwave, gothic and world by Last.fm listeners. Having announced their reunion towards the end of 2011, the time is now for the Dead Can Dance journey to really kick back into gear. Tracks from Anastasis have already made their way onto Last.fm listener’s stereos, with the track “Amnesia” the best received so far with 673 listeners last week. A flurry of live activity is lined up with the band playing Los Angeles tomorrow:

Next up is the new album from sugary pop punk veterans Yellowcard, entitled Southern Air. The band went on a two year hiatus and returned last year with the album When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes, which has bagged 1,340,887 scrobbles to date. To put that into context their Last.fm peak came with the album Ocean Avenue in 2003, which currently stands at 12,540,358 scrobbles. The album is causing a real stir in their Last.fm charts and even though super-hit “Ocean Avenue” can’t be toppled just yet, new tracks such as lead single “Always Summer” are commanding well over 2,000 listeners a week. Yellowcard appear at:

In the U.S. this week, Michael “Big Mike” Lynche celebrates his success as an American Idol finalist with the release of his first LP, the self-titled “Michael Lynche.” Rife with songs of romance and tales of love lost, the set includes tracks with names like “Lover’s Symphony,” “Baby Boo,” and our favorite, “Sex.” Stream the entire album this week at AOL Music.

Lastly there is new music from technical death metal band The Faceless. The Californian band release Autotheism this week and fans can expect more of the mind-bending guitar wizardry seen on past albums such as 2006′s Akeldama (1,388,158 scrobbles) and 2008′s Planetary Duality (971,212 scrobbles). The band are currently taking part in the Summer Slaughter 2012 tour alongside Cannibal Corpse, Between The Buried And Me, Goatwhore and Periphery.