Here’s our eight tracks of the week for the week ending today. That’s eight minor miracles that veer wildly between tractor-crushing rock power and delicate, tear-prompting balladry. We hope you enjoy them.
**Halestorm **- Apocalyptic When this video launched on YouTube yesterday, Lzzy Hale took to the comments section, bravely fielding questions like “What is your advice to young girls everywhere?”, “would you say hi to your fans from Ecuador?” and “Would you accompany me to a NY wedding in November?”. We’re not sure how Lzzy copes with all the attention, but it’s attention the band surely deserve: Apocalyptic is a song with a melody as memorable as its riff is face-crushing.
Raven Eye - Breaking Out Is Milton Keynes the new rock’n’roll capital of the world? Probably not, but Raven Eye may well be the most exciting thing to happen to the jewel of Buckinghamshire since it was designated a new town back in 1967. Breaking Out is a filthy monster of a song, and we’d claim to have discovered them were it not for the fact that the track has had nearly 100,000 Soundcloud plays since it was uploaded last month.
Prima Donna - Deathless Kevin Preston, who sings with LA glam-punk’n’rollers Prima Donna, is also a member of the Foxboro Hot Tubs, a band that includes Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. But wait! Come back! This doesn’t sound anything like Billie’s boys, but is instead a rather lovely nugget of new-wavey pop-rock, like The Strokes, but harder. Steven Van Zandt is a fan.
Emp!re - Patchwork And Bone Ouch! Is it bracing out there or what? Finding it hard to get going in the morning? Pop this bouncy little post-punk rocker from these West County newbies on the old ‘personal music player’ and you’ll be positively leaping for the bus to work of a morn. Disclaimer: if you have an accident while scissor-kicking down an icy road, don’t blame us, right?
Korn with Corey Taylor - Sabotage There we were, watching Celebrity Big Brother of a Friday night when WORD came in that there’d been an almighty collision. Onstage, at Wembley. Between Korn and Slipknot. In a Beastie Boys tribute. Pretty fun it is too, with Slipknot’s Corey T giving it enormous beatdown welly while Korn’s Jonathan D does a dainty nu-metal Riverdance to the whole shebang in this ace bit of fan-shot footage.
Jeremy Gluck & Robert Coyne — Rainshowers Here’s a rather wistful take on Mike Paglario’s 1971 Canadian classic Rainshowers, courtesy of The Barracudas’ Jeremy Gluck and Robert Coyne. It ends up up sounding like the kind of thing the Rolling Stones might have recorded during the sessions for Sticky Fingers but then neglected to include on the album because they forgot. Terrific, sad stuff. Baba-rara-kuku-dada, indeed.
Butch Walker - Autumn Leaves Butch Walker is a man with a rare gift: he has an exquisite ear for melody - and for melancholy - yet writes songs without ever veering off into the kind mawkish territory that’s often the destination of more sappy writers. How does he do this? We don’t honestly know. But it’s very clever.
Chris Holmes - Let It Roar Former W.A.S.P man Chris returns to the water in this charming song, taken from his delightfully-titled forthcoming album Shittin’ Bricks. In the video, Chris concentrates on what Chris does best: rocking hard, fishing, riding motorbikes, annoying the neighbours and eating breadsticks.
