It's been just over two years since our last update, and I guess we got the itch to add some new features, fix some bugs and try and implement some of the many changes people have suggested over the past little while.
The sweeping goal of the project was to make it easier to find information on the site, and information about bands in particular. We have more than 5000 reviews in our database of thousands of bands and it seemed like it might be fun to come up with a way to present that, along with some photographs, biographies and even music samples. If you look to your right, you'll see a collapsible sidebar that picks a random band - old favourites like Minor Threat, Reagan Youth and Ramones. Influential modern acts like Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion and Less Than Jake and upstarts like The Bronx, Against Me! and even Fall Out Boy.
We've also given our registered users the power to rate bands and reviews. From your ratings we'll build recommendations and connections on a level our community has never tried before. Registration, of course, is free, easy and very private. You just need an email address and we won't ask for any other personal information.
There are lots of little changes as well, like a redesigned search engine, a slightly-updated look and feel, Google Calendar integration and lots more.
If things don't look quite right to you, try refreshing your browser cache. You can do that by holding shift (or the apple key) and pressing reload on your browser.
What if I don't like the new site and want the old one to be around forever?
We understand that some people don't like change; you're comfortable with one thing, so why should we change it? Well, we wanted to make sure that our focus was clear; it's about music; all kinds of music in this genre. From the obvious candidates to the newer bands that continue to push the envelope. By making that information easy to find, we hope you'll check out new bands and rediscover something you may have forgotten
So band pages eh?
In case you're wondering; the bands are chosen at random and are not paid for in any way. We've always had a policy that content is never something you should charge for, and we'll continue to make sure there is a level playing field for bands on tiny indies and those on gigantic labels.
The only criteria for inclusion is generally to have a record reviewed on the site. To have music samples, we need to get permission from the labels so that will be a gradual process. Band biographies and info will be filled in as time goes on, although we've got a head start on a lot of them.
What's a "Day Navigator?"
A lot of people asked us why it's how hard to find older stories; we post a lot of news, so if you miss a day, you can use the Day Navigator to warp back in time like Marty McFly and see the news posted on a given day.
Will all my account stuff, comments, etc. still work?
Everything, from links to user accounts to comments should be exactly the same.
Did you drop any features?
No, we wanted to keep all the good stuff and add new good stuff. It's not much fun if new features come at the expense of old ones.
The links have all changed! They look completely different!
They have, but all old links continue to work. If you've linked to our site at any point in the past, those links will continue to work forever.
What browsers will work?
The site was tested on Mozilla Firefox 1.5, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0, Apple Safari 1.2 and 2.0, Omniweb 6.0 beta, Opera 7, and pretty much any browser we could find.
It works nicely in text mode if you use Links
Browsers that are more than ten years old are on the way out; of course, you can still use them, but you won't get the full experience. For the most part, that only means Netscape 4.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0; both of those are old and full of dangerous security problems anyway so you're best to consider upgrading.
The new sidebar is really wide and my browser is narrow
Click the double arrows (>>) to shrink the sidebar and it'll have the same dimensions as it did on the old site. It'll remember your settings for the next time you visit and you don't need to be logged in.
Why'd you make it wider?
In the last two years, most people have upgraded to 1024x768-wide screens or larger. We found that more than 90% of people were running at that size so why not use the space for something useful?
What can I do with Google Calendar?
If you have a Google Calendar account, you can add tour dates or release dates to your calendar by clicking the little 
next to stories and releases.
What if I have problems?
You can click here to send an email with a report of your issue, and our trained team of web monkeys will get to it as soon as possible. Either that or throw stuff at you.
About these ratings?
You can provide your own ratings of albums and bands; we're hoping to use that information to make some year end lists as well as provide recommended albums and artists customized for you. That information is private and covered by our privacy policy so you can be honest we'll never give that information to anyone. Your top rated bands and albums will show up on your profile page though. But low ratings will be completely private.
If you're concerned about privacy, just get in touch and we can explain more about how that'll work.
Anything else to check out?
- When you come back to the site after a little while, you'll be able to see, at a glance, if new comments have been posted for stories since your last visit.
- You can bookmark a search for later
- We added a "Best New Music" page which collects some of the music our editors thought was worth checking out.
- Lots of other small changes to fix problems, address annoyances