Last week’s winners were Vodun, followed by Mastodon in second place and Sheepy in third. But who’ll rock your world this week? We’ve got a nutritious buffet of tasty rock treats from famous faces and newcomers alike, so have a listen, ingest, then vote for your favourite at the foot of this page.
Have good weekends y’all.
All Them Witches – Alabaster
Some pretty tasty heavy psych sounds have emerged from the South lately, and All Them Witches make some of the best. Their new album Sleeping Through The War is out next week, and this is one of our favourite cuts from it. Haunting backing vocals and acoustic beats blend with 70s psychedelic rock, transporting us from office desk to a haunted desert somewhere. Lush.
Me And That Man – Ain’t Much Loving
Behemoth leader Nergal swaps black metal for dark blues in this beautifully brooding “broken soul” of a track – a moody highlight in his new rock venture’s arsenal.
Soundgarden – Flower (remixed)
Some classic grunge cool to kick off your weekend, Flower opens the newly remixed, expanded edition of Soundgarden’s debut Ultramega OK. It was big and beautifully bold (in a knarly grungy sort of way) in 1988, and now if possible it sounds even bigger and better. We’ll take it.
Blackfield – From 44 to 48
Steven Wilson wrote and sings this track from the new Blackfield album – spearheaded by his talented pal, Israeli star Aviv Geffen. For all the worthy, progressive labels bestowed upon him, Wilson is – at heart – a brilliant pop songwriter (go back and listen to Porcupine Tree, or solo songs like Deform To Form A Star; beautiful, catchy tunes, first and foremost), which this testifies.
Crystal Fairy – Crystal Fairy
Le Butcherettes singer Teri Gender Bender has teamed up with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (At The Drive-In, The Mars Volta) and Dale Crover and Buzz Osbourne from the Melvins to form this fuzzy, buzzy new rock outfit. This eponymous track is a supercharged pathway into their world, described as “a combination of punk, metal, psycho rock, blood rock and rabid rhythmic excitement.”
Loudguns – Billie The Queen
Time to party like it’s 1987 with these gloriously stuck-in-the-past Finns – echoing the hairsprayed footsteps of Reckless Love, Santa Cruz and the like. The chorus also sounds like it could’ve come from the new Meat Loaf musical, which is no bad thing in our eyes.
Tequila Mockingbyrd – Never Go Home
Everyone in Australia ends up in a rock’n’roll band at some point, and the Tequila Mockingbyrd girls are no exception. In this video they’re three old ladies with huge teeth, vowing to ‘never go home’ and (apparently) drink ALL the drinks instead. Indeed, when they’ve got feel-good bangers like this to party along to, why the hell not?
Sugarbowl – Mothermaker
“I might be biased,” quoth the message these guys sent us, “but we’re fucking good, and my vocalist is the dog’s bollocks. We’re the next big thing coming out of the UK blues rock scene and I’d bet all of next month’s wage packets from my shitty bar job that we’ll be on the Classic Rock Magazine front cover one day.”
Well, you can’t accuse them of lacking confidence. As you can imagine, we were relieved to find that Mothermaker is actually rather good…
