Tracks Of The Week: new music and videos from Rainbow, The Golden Grass and more

Every week we scour the world of rock’n’roll for the latest, greatest new music – before presenting you with a shortlist of some of our favourites. After that, it’s up to you as to which one’s deemed the best. Last week you voted these guys into the top three, in reverse order:

3. Judas Priest - Never The Heroes

2. Palace Of The King - I Am The Storm

1. FM - Black Magic

Today we’ve another fresh batch for you to judge, like hot cakes out of an internet-based oven, so get stuck in then vote for your favourite at the foot of this page. And, of course, we’ll have another spin of last week’s winners FM first…

The Golden Grass – The Spell

Get ready to party like it’s 1972. Or 1969, even. Taken from the Brooklyn trio’s upcoming album Absolutely, the more-ish, bouncily shuffling The Spell swoops you back to a golden age of psychedelia-infused rock’n’roll (complete with flares and ALL the hair). Mmmm tasty.

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow – Waiting For A Sign

Holy smokes, it’s a new (like, properly new) song from the rejuvenated Rainbow! And it’s really rather good – surprisingly loose and laid back, offering more infectious bluesy goodness than one might have expected from Blackmore after years largely filled with covers and medieval minstrel noodling. Huzzah!

Fireroad – Your Summer Sun

Time for some breezy, contemplative road-trip rock’n’roll, courtesy of Fireroad (taken from upcoming record Flesh Blood And Bone). With summery guitar that invokes John Mellencamp, plus hints of The Strokes and Stereophonics at their moodiest, Your Summer Sun offers a cathartic shot of warmth in these technically-spring-but-still-bloomin’-cold days.

Z-Band – I Got A Mission

It’s a confident band that includes “hard on” in the opening line of a song. Still, the Belgium-based Z-Band are hardly the first rockers to stuff a tune with suggestive gusto – and of course it helps greatly that I Got A Mission is a sharp, hooky hip-thrust of 21st century rock urgency.

Black Foxxes – JOY

Starring frontman Mark Holley’s dog, Tarka, the new, artistically slow-motioned Black Foxxes video is at once cute (we mentioned the dog, right?), pensive and absorbing. And that’s before we’ve even got to the song – a commanding, atmospheric mix of visceral rage, delicate verses and haunting trumpet strains – which is one of our favourites from new album Reiði, on sale March 16.

The Rocket Dolls – DeaDHeaD

Mixing metallic guitar crunch with Alice In Chains-nodding grunginess (plus a soaring hint of Foo Fighters in the chorus), this track is the latest tune from The Rocket Dolls – taken from the album of the same name. “’DeaDHead’ is just simply about my battles with depression, battle with drugs and prescription painkillers,” explains singer Nikki Smash. “This song is very much me wearing my heart on my sleeve.”

Demob Happy – Loosen It

Let’s get weird now (or a bit weird at least), with the new video and song from Newcastle-turned-Brighton trio Demob Happy. Fuzzy buzzsaw guitars and trippy colours merge with Beatles-y harmonies to create something that’s both alt rock and very 60s/early 70s-inspired. Catch ‘em on tour in April and May.

The Sheepdogs – Nobody

We’ll leave you with a gorgeous fusion of americana, luscious harmonies and Allmans-esque guitar from Canada’s The Sheepdogs – rootsy yet sweetly peaceful. Who could possibly resist it? ‘Nobody’, that’s who. Happy Friday y’all.

Polly is deputy editor at Classic Rock magazine, where she writes and commissions regular pieces and longer reads (including new band coverage), and has interviewed rock's biggest and newest names. She also contributes to Louder, Prog and Metal Hammer and talks about songs on the 20 Minute Club podcast. Elsewhere she's had work published in The Musician, delicious. magazine and others, and written biographies for various album campaigns. In a previous life as a women's magazine junior she interviewed Tracey Emin and Lily James – and wangled Rival Sons into the arts pages. In her spare time she writes fiction and cooks.