Another week has passed on the good ship rock'n'roll, and Captain Jack Hutchinson will be delighted with his showing in our latest Tracks Of The Week contest, for he sailed to victory, ahead of the great Tony Iommi and the great Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators. So congratulations to him. Long may he reign.
Or at least until this time next week. Eight fresh faces are primed and ready for action, and they're below. So get listening.
Sons Of Silver - Fever Run
The LA-based rockers return with this crunchy, industrial-come-grunge banger with Slash-level grooves, a big chorus and a touch of Josh Homme in Peter Argyropoulos’s vocals. Commanding stuff. “Fever Run is a great example of what Sons Of Silver is all about, musically, for me,” guitarist Kevin Haaland says. “Melody-based rock ‘n’ roll, big riffs, hooks and, most of all, a soaring chorus. All rooted in melodies that hopefully stick with you.”
Royal Blood - Dead Company
Audibly enjoying a confident new stride, Royal Blood continue to set the stage for their next album (which you can buy in its entirety now) with this mighty title track. Kicking straight in with a big, galloping buzzsaw hook with pounding drums to match, it mixes the raw oomph of their first records with the swagger and subtle shifts of a band who’ve been at this for well over a decade now, and have learned a thing or two about putting a song together.
The Misty - Neverknows
By day Connie Stone and Steve Sherwood sell guitars on London’s legendary Denmark Street. By night they mastermind ‘post-surf’ cohort The Misty – recent support act to The Molotovs and now responsible for this dreamlike swirl of indie rock with a retro heart. Delicately dark and shot through with 60s psychedelic folk, its shadows emerge through atmospheric tones and musings like ‘We all wanna be good looking and punch someone in the face’, set to the sweetest of vocal harmonies. Ones to watch out for.
Skindred - Big ‘Em Up
“It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by life and everything it throws at you,” mouthpiece-in-chief Benji Webbe explains, of this groovy, meatilicious godzilla from the ragga-metallers’ latest record, “from your gas bill to a family tragedy or people just being negative and your timeline filling up with hate and negativity on social media.” If anything rock-adjacent is going to lift a crappy mood, it’s Big ‘Em Up. Stick it on, stand taller and motor through everything on your to-do list.
Battlesnake - Bog Bringer
‘I am made of mud / I have ascended from the bog’. Only these madcap Australians could open on such a flagrantly ridiculous lyric and still deliver a rock-solid piece of proper music. Bog Bringer finds them revelling in their now-signature realm of fantastical freakery and Judas Priest-via-Queen levels of twin-lead riffage, sequins and storytelling – fire in their bellies, broadswords in hand, hellish beasts in tow and inhibitions…what inhibitions?! They’re called Battlesnake, I think we passed that a while ago.
Needtobreathe feat. Anne Wilson - Past The Gates
Lusty, acoustic-based roots and heartland sensibilities combine with primal gospel energy on this quality new single from the Grammy-nominated South Carolinians. Peppered with earthy, soulful piano and joined by Kentucky singer Anne Wilson for some added lungpower, it’s a rousing heartwarmer for increasingly grey and chilly days (in the UK at least…). Like the sound of that? Find more on their new record The Long Surrender and The Fellow Passengers of Pain, which comes out next month.
Robert Plant - The Blackest Crow
From Robert Plant and Saving Grace's digital EP Saving Grace: All That Glitters... (originally released on vinyl for Record Store Day earlier in the year), The Blackest Crow is a traditional Appalachian folk tune, although some of its lines date back to earlier Scottish and English ballads. It's also typical modern-day Plant, sounding both ancient and contemporary at the same time, imbued with a lovely warmth and continuing his entirely admirable I'll-do-whatever-the-hell-I-like approach to producing music.
The Violent Hour - Already Dead
Ex-Butcher Baby Carla Harvey used to be a mortuary assistant and is a partner in a business that turns cremated remains into stones people can carry around to honour the departed, so it's entirely appropriate that the video for Already Dead, the new single by her post-Butchers project The Violent Hour, should be shot in a morgue. Having said all that, Already Dead is surprisingly upbeat, thumping boisterously along and featuring an old-school twin-guitar solo and a chorus uplifting enough to rouse a corpse.
