A new year is upon us, and so is the latest edition of our Tracks Of The Week contest, fresh from a longer-than-usual break over the festive period. But before we start on another 12 months of new music, some unfinished business: the results of our final contest of 2025.
Wille And The Bandits came in first with their Wheal Jane single picking up an impressive 33% of the overall vote. Neon Animal's appropriately seasonal Santa’s Naughty List and Creeping Jean's cover of Donna Summer's disco banger I Feel Love filled the minor medal positions.
This week's selections are below, ready for your ears and your votes. Happy New Year!
The Black Crowes - Profane Prophecy
Picking up from where they left off with 2024’s excellent Happiness Bastards, the Robinson brothers kick off the campaign for new album A Pound Of Feathers with this gorgeously juicy whale of a rock'n'roller – all strutting Stones-y sass and sumptuous Americana. Full of soul but light on its feet and more than ready to party. “This album feels transformative to us,” guitarist brother Rich Robinson says. “Going back to our roots, we felt that spark in the studio and how we work together. Lighting a fire that hits harder, more jagged, but is still true to our musical essence.”
AK & The Red Kites - Cosmic Train
The Dust Coda’s new frontman Andrew Knightley dives back into his first band for this catchy, swaggering blues rocker. Armed with a Chris Cornell-infused purr and classy hard rock guitar tones, he makes the sort of noise to which you’d gladly sink a couple of beers, stop worrying about all your broken New Year's resolutions and have a straight-shooting good time (certain lyrical clunkers notwithstanding – ‘Debauchery’s imminent’ eh? Hmm…). Nice.
Tailgunner - Eulogy
If heavy metal drama and speed is what you need, you could do an awful lot worse than the swashbuckling new single from these rising young Brits. Galloping, turbocharged theatre? Check. Chest-thumping melody? Check. Flashy twin-lead solo? Check. “Eulogy is the most epic release of our career so far,” the band say, not inaccurately. “Inspired in particular by our heroes in Helloween and Blind Guardian, it's Tailgunner at full throttle, telling an epic journey into the afterlife.”
Alter Bridge - Scales Are Falling
Kennedy, Tremonti, Marshall and Philips kick up a nicely menacing hard rock storm on this latest single from their new self-titled album. But that’s not where it ends; Scales Are Falling begins on an eerie, suspenseful note before steadily shifting into the sort of moody yet ultra-melodic beef they do so well, plus atmospheric textures and dreamy sojourns that give the whole thing a journey-like quality.
Bywater Call - Only
There’s more than a touch of the Tedeschi Trucks Band in Canadian collective Bywater Call’s stirring new tune (the first of a new album due for later this year). All soulful restraint, light-touch organ and warm Nashville-ready guitar strains with beautifully from-the-heart vocals. A class act in action, and must-listen for anyone seeking quality rootsy rock n’ soul. They deserve to be better-known than they are.
Edenthorn - Year Of The Snake
This heavy little earworm went down a treat in the Classic Rock office, its thick groovy swagger and hypnotic Alice In Chains-esque haze capped off with a flash of tasty soloing. Highly moreish alt-rock with riffage to kill. Sending out the actual Year Of The Snake (according to the Chinese zodiac) in suitably biting style – cool venom you can rock out to.
Mother Vulture - Knuckles
With a bassline that drops into your chest like a ton of lead (in a good way) Knuckles escalates through deliciously fuzzed up guitar grooves and impish touches, peaking with an arena-sized wall of rage – singer Georgi Valentine roaring like a tiny but terrifying demon. If QOTSA spent more time at hardcore punk nights, they might have come up with this. Catch them on tour across the UK from 31 January through February – seriously, go and see them, they’re one of the fieriest live groups out there.
Starbenders - Saturday
All synth glitter and starry-eyed, uptempo power ballad vibes, Saturday finds the Atlanta glamsters on dreamy, 80s-evoking form. Originally written and performed by Californian synthwave/alt metal troupe All The Damn Vampires, it packs a glossy yet gutsy punch in the hands of Kimi and co, befitting this latest musical chapter of theirs. Their new album, The Beast Goes On, comes out next month.
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