Our Tracks Of The Week are here to party, and they’e here to party hard. Enjoy.
Biters - Low Lives in Hi Definition
We saw these Atlanta-based rock’n’rollers this week, and they were bloody great. Gig highlights included this song (now complete with brand new video) and frontman Tuk’s tale of Uncle Alvin and the crack whores – in which young Tuk sampled a lot of crack with a blurry-eyed family member, and had a thoroughly good time.
Bruce Soord - Familiar Patterns
The mastermind behind nu-prog outfit The Pineapple Thief, Soord provides a first glimpse of his solo debut with this. Gentle electronic beats and plaintive, Thom Yorke-tinged vocals climax gradually into delicate samples, Floydian guitar lines and ambient layers. A prettily enticing taster.
Saxon - Queen Of Hearts
Here’s Biff and his mighty men of rock, back with a thundering Andy Sneap production inspired by the chess game in Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. “It is a masterpiece of metal,” says Biff, a man clearly unafraid of blowing his own trumpet. “And stylistically it is loosely based inCourt of the Crimson King by King Crimson.”
Kurt Cobain - Sappy
Kurt’s story clearly isn’t a happy one, and there’s something a little distressing about hearing this fractured, lethargic home recording. We’re not sure if anyone has ever sounded more alone on a tape, and it’s an uncomfortable, gripping listen.
Blitzen Trapper - All Across This Land
Conversely, All Across This Land is the most joyous song we’ve heard in weeks, a Tom Petty-ish anthem so imbued with the spirit of the road that we’re tempted to move to Montana. Then we’d buy a Harley and spend our days travelling wide open spaces in search of big sky, thunder in our boots and the wind in our hair.
Rush - Roll The Bones (Live)
One of the saddest things about Rush departing the live arena is that we’ll be denied Geddy Lee’s increasingly innovative choices of novelty amplification. So here’s a great moment from the R40 tour, where the Gedster’s fender is apparently powered by a trio of mid-cycle washing machines. Watch out for a cameo from the Trailer Park Boys.
Billy Gibbons - Got Love If You Want It
“I mean what’s the point in listening to us doing I’m a King Bee when you can hear Slim Harpo do it?”, said Mick Jagger back in 1966, and it would seem that nothing’s changed, for here’s Billy Gibbons covering Slim half a century later, and people still aren’t listening to the originals. So enjoy the flavour — for this is a funky jam indeed — then try the real thing.
Killing Joke - Euphoria
“We remain genre-blind so our music will always cover a vat spectrum of influences,” says Killing Joke man Youth, “from disco right through to heavy metal and beyond.” This particular track falls into the “beyond” category, and is so epic it might as well be a recording of The Gods themselves, whoever they might be, bellowing into a canyon.
