As the Doomsday Clock remains stuck at a mere 89 seconds to midnight, sweet relief from incoming Armageddon, Glastonbury Festival coverage at that imbecilic F1 movie can be found in our new Tracks Of The Week contest, in which eight righteous rockers and rollers do musical battle.
But first, the results from last week. Joe Bonamassa's Trigger Finger topped the tree with 38.02% of the votes, while The Southern River Band's Don’t Take It To Heart scored 14.81%, just defeating Enuff Z'nuff's Heavy Metal (14.32%) by the slimmest of margins. So here's JoBo again.
Below, you'll find out latest eight, and we hope you enjoy them.
Need an energy kick, fast? Plug into this – the title track from His Lordship’s excellent second album – and absorb that fiery, wild-eyed but somehow incredibly cool punk’n’roll hoodoo that Messrs Walbourne and Sonne do so well. If you’ve not already seen them live, and fancy a hit of Stooges-meets-Jerry-Lee-Lewis-meets-a-crateload-of-dynamite good stuff, do yourself a favour and get down to one of their UK shows this November.
If you thought that oomphy, Zeppelin-tastic classic rock revivalism only really kicked off in the US and Canada (hello Greta Van Fleet, early Crown Lands, The Damn Truth…), think again. These young Brits, for example, are utterly in love with the Delta-charged, curly-haired, bell-bottomed golden age of rock’n’roll, and this juicy lil’ riffcake does everything to confirm that. “It’s meant to feel dangerous and a bit out of control,” says frontman James Bartholomew. “We didn’t want it polished. It had to hit like the records we grew up on – raw, fast, and full of attitude.”
This swaggering new headbanger injects an acid shot of GN’R raunch into these Montreal rockers’ cheeseclothed, 70s-heavy formula. “Addicted was born from that raw, painful place of not fitting in,” says lead singer/rhythm guitarist Lee-La Baum. “It speaks to the dark spiral we sometimes fall into just to feel accepted—chasing trends, numbing who we are, losing ourselves piece by piece. But at its core, this song is a rebellion. A loud, unapologetic cry of freedom.”
There’s a nicely devil-may-care yet raging touch of Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist in Matt Bigland’s verse vocals. But then the song stretches its long, taut arms and relaxes into a warm, 90s alt rocky chorus – think The Hives jamming Nirvana records with Weezer, and you’re in the right territory. Like the rest of their upcoming album, I’ve Felt Better, it finds Bigland channeling some seriously testing personal times into fizzing, infectious noises.
Ashley’s a country girl with rock’n’roll and biker bars in her blood. Her new single reflects that, with a groove on it the size of Arkansas (where she’s originally from), a shedload of lovely, swampy slide guitar and tasty outlaw-meets-gospel vibes as far as the eye can see. Countrified matter that rocks hard, in other words. Cowboy hats with tattoos and gorgeously rich yet gritty sound to boot.
Get your hard rock fix in deliciously doom-laden style – but with shards of light piercing through all the wooze – courtesy of these dudes. Comprising members of Type O Negative, Down and Crowbar, and with influences spanning “everything from Black Sabbath to The Beatles”, you’d expect heavyweight earth-quaking riffage with some serious melodic sensibilities. And that’s pretty much exactly what you get here. Tasty Alice In Chains–y vocals, too.
Mick Jagger bought a copy of Zydeco accordion king Clifton Chenier's Bon Ton Roulet! album in a Manhattan record store in the late 1960s and became a fan, and half a century later he's paid tribute as the Rolling Stones and accordionist Steve Riley contribute to a new celebration of Chenier's work. The album also features Taj Mahal, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and more, but it's the Stones' rattling version of the classic Zydeco Sont Pas Salés that stands out, not least because Jagger sings in Creole French.
It's been nearly a decade since Airbourne's Joel O'Keefe introduced us to The Lazys, and we're delighted to report that the band show no sign of either slowing up or settling down. Hot Under The Collar thumps along like Bon-era AC/DC, ripping and snorting and generally misbehaving like a crocodile in a crèche, all the while generating excitement for the band's upcoming European tour, which kicks off in Glasgow next week.
