The last time we did this Deep Purple won the popular vote with Time For Bedlam, followed by Orange County rockers Them Evils, while LA sleaze warriors Steel Panther settled for the bronze. This week, it’ll be someone completely different, and YOU get to choose. Place your vote at the foot of the page.
Bob Seger - Glenn Song
In which one of rock’s great balladeers breaks out his acoustic guitar to pay poignant tribute to a lifelong friend and fellow Detroit native, Eagles frontman Glenn Frey. Lovely and loving.
Zeal & Ardor - Devil Is Fine
From the chilling sound of the clanking chains that provide the song’s backbone to frontman Manuel Gagneux’s stunning voice, this slave spiritual/black metal mashup is unlike anything we’ve ever heard, and we’ve been listening for literally ages.
Nickelback - Feed The Machine
Ahhh, Nickelback. Here they go again with their arenas and their big songs and their popularity and their well-crafted, well-played songs that people love. It’s little wonder wonder they get so much grief.
Little Hurricane - OTL
Boy meets girl. Boy forms bluesy alt-rock duo with Girl. Boy wanders off during a recording session and pitches up 17 hours later with kidney failure and frostbite and is unable to walk for a month. Boy marries girl. And that’s the true story of Little Hurricane. This song tells the tale of their love.
Steve Hackett - In The Skeleton Gallery
Colossal work from the nimble-fingered Hackett, which starts off with Kashmir-style strings, continues with some middle-eastern wind, climaxes with a riff so powerful it’ll punch your face right off, and finishes on a touch of Disney.
My Dynamite - Motortalkin’
Statistics tell us that nearly all Australians are in rock bands, and Melbourne’s My Dynamite feature several of them. With a bluesy swagger and stacks of funk in the trunk, the band come on like The Faces or The Black Crowes, but with added grit and grease.
The Sleep Experiment - The Spontaneous
If you’re fond of a spot of demented space rock, then we have no hesitation in recommending this two and a half minutes of utter insanity from Derby’s Sleep Experiment, an unruly brigade whose members apparently include Plozzy Gizbourne, Derek Crapton, Jon Bon Bonham, Richie Crackmore and Cliff Benton.
Arcane Roots - Curtains
Fresh from last night’s sold-out show at London’s swanky Bush Hall, here come Arcane Roots with Curtains, which sounds like the sort of thing that ends up soundtracking one of those Nordic detective series off the TV where everything is filmed in the dark and lots of people die and there’s a weird child with mysterious knowledge and something evil lurks in the forest. Epic stuff indeed.
