Christmas, apparently, is coming. How did that happen? Where's 2005 gone? Hmmm. In keeping with seasonal tradition, we'll take this opportunity to tie up 2005's metaphoric loose ends and look ahead to 2006...

The Gravity Xmas Party takes place on 19th December at The Peel and will feature festive frolics from HELL IS FOR HEROES, JACOB'S STORIES, METRONOMES, TELLISON and some mysterious Special Guests, fresh from their first UK tour in over a year... It will be great. You can catch pretty much every Gravity band somewhere around the country before the end of the year and, we'd suggest, it's very much worth your while to do so.

STAPLETON are on tour for the first time in eighteen months, supporting Statistics. You can get your very own copy of their brand new and quite frankly wonderful new album 'Hug The Coast' at shows. Or indeed from this very site, delivered to your door.

Also back out on tour for the first time in ages are HUNDRED REASONS, but if you haven't already got your ticket for the Barfly tour, you're out of luck as it's sold out. We're still the only place you can get the band's own Live Bootleg album, self-released in conjunction with GDIP last winter and limited to one pressing, ever. The new HR album is out next spring and it's everso slightly good...

First there was the split single, now there is the JACOB's STORIES / METRONOMES tour, coming to a town near you (provided you live in the south - apologies to our northern friends, we'll hopefully be covering that sometime early next year). Jacob's Stories play outside Brighton! Metronomes play shows! A generally unmissable combination, so don't, y'know, miss it.

CAPDOWN finish off 2005 with a further brace of one-off shows, culminating at Nottingham's Rock City on New Year's Eve for an all-nighter alongside Bullet For My Valentine. Tickets are a very reasonable £14.50 and you can get them here. The new Capdown album WILL be out next year and, in our humble opinion, it's very much worth the (long!) wait.

An alternative option is the ever-wonderful and somewhat traditional New Year destination, Exeter Cavern, where you can indulge in the Gravity-themed delights of DAVE HOUSE, TELLISON and KILL KILL DISCONNECT for a mere £3!

Once all of that general frivolity is out of the way, we start a brand new year with some brand new releases. First up, the soon-to-be-legendary GET CAPE WEAR CAPE FLY / DAVE HOUSE split. This release has got the lot: it's a 10", it's coloured vinyl, it's stictly limited to 500 copies EVER, it has Get Cape covering a Dave song ('Weeknights and Weekends'), it has Dave covering a Get Cape song ('A Song For'). Most importantly, it has a BRAND NEW Dave House song, 'Shiver', and a BRAND NEW version of Get Cape's 'Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager Part One'. The split is out 30th January.

Also out 30th January is our CADILLAC BLINDSIDE retrospective, licensed from Fueled By Ramen, home of Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco and The Academy Is. All the songs the band recorded for FBR are here, plus an exclusive, previously unreleased track and masses of stuff written by the band specifically for this release. A special release from a special band.

And finally, in a discerning shop near you this month... STAPLETON's fantabulous meisterwerk 'Hug The Coast'; the dreamy JACOB's STORIES / METRONOMES split; the general brilliance of the DAVE HOUSE 'You Are On My Frequency' single.

Happy holidays everyone, see you on the other side.