Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week

The Sheepdogs

As dusk sets on Record Store Day for another year, here’s a selection of new songs that won’t cost £100 on eBay to enjoy.

Sheepdogs - Bad Lieutenant
Saskatoon’s finest are quietly building a reputation for combining slick retro-rock with enormously inventive visuals, and Bad Lieutenant finds them at it once again. You’ll find delightfully choreographed violence, some seriously NSFW nudity, and a sting in the tail. And then you’ll probably watch it again, you blood-thirsty, horny thing, you.

Goat - I Sing In Silence
And now for something completely different – really different. Blending trippy, tribal psych with an electronic afro-beat groove that won’t leave your head for weeks, the Swedish experimentalists have created one of their most addictive numbers yet. Proper weird, in a good way.

Flotsam and Jetsam - Iron Maiden
After 35 years battling in the thrash metal trenches, F&J have released a track called Iron Maiden, which we assume is a tribute to Iron Maiden. Why? Because it sounds like The Trooper played at 78. It’s metal thrashing mad, as Anthrax once so wisely pontificated.

Ace Frehley - Fire And Water featuring Paul Stanley
There are many great bands with four letter names — Rush, Styx, Them, Devo, Cars etc — and here two of them combine to great effect as Free’s Fire And Water is given a shiny hard rock makeover by former comrades in Kiss Ace Frehley and Paul Stanley.

The Virginmarys - For You My Love
We thought we’d let some of our commenters on Facebook review this one. “This track sounds incredible with all the layers in the recording - sounds good and gritty!” says Nicole Prince, while Clarisa Wallace Porter adds, “They’re amazing and I can’t get enough of everything I’ve heard from the new album. Class act, major talent.” Thanks girls!

Long Distance Calling - Getaway
The German post-rockers have released a video featuring a song that sounds like it might be an outtake from the soundtrack to Miami Vice, and visuals that star actor Ralph Richter, who played Petty Officer Frenssen in Das Boot, the classic movie about underwater Nazis. What more could anyone possibly want? Nothing, clearly.

The Commander-in-Chief - Immigrant Song
No, Barack Obama hasn’t covered Led Zeppelin. Instead it’s the mysterious “New Queen of Shred” (© Metal Hammer) ripping her seven-string way through the Zep classic whilst being filmed in monochrome in some woods. As well as the dandy axework, check out The CIC’s shrieking, which is well mental.

Blue Nation - Morning Light
Birmingham’s Blue Nation describe themselves as “indie blues”, and Morning Light is a thumping example of exactly that, a song with riffs that have, in all likelihood, been hewn from driftwood found on the banks of the River Rea delta itself.

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