Our Tracks Of The Week are here. We’ve lined them up on the office stereo and retired to a safe distance to enjoy their explosive majesty. We hope you do the same. But using your own stereo.
Blitzen Trapper - Mystery And Wonder
Portland’s leading purveyors of electric folk-rock Americana return with another slice of hot apple pie from last year’s excellent All Across This Land long-player. This video features a man grappling with writers’ cramp, a nice tattooed lady, and a comprehensively stocked pantry.
Holy Grove - Death Of Magic
Another band from Portand, Holy Grove are heavier than a plutonium whale but much friskier. Think Grand Funk, think Sabbath, think Blue Cheer, think great big riffs that stomp and thunder and terrify the pets.
Electric Eye - Mercury Rise
Time for your Friday dose of Norwegian space rock. Well, we say ‘space rock’, but this is actually more like T. Rex in many ways – if T. Rex hung onto their quirky, jerky but catchy tunes, then hung out with Pond at a psych festival. Hazy yet hooky, with a pleasingly trippy video.
Monster Truck - Don’t Tell Me How To Live
This video is amongst the most macho things we have ever witnessed, as Monster Truck play their hard-riffing new single on an oil rig in the middle of a snowstorm. At least we think it’s an oil rig - we don’t leave the office much in case we get our fingers dirty.
Bob Mould - Voices In My Head
From hardcore with Hüsker Dü to alt-rock with Sugar, Bob Mould explored a wealth of musical territory through the 80s and 90s. More recently, however, he’s coined some quality, acoustic-strumming solo work. This contemplative, beautifully composed number provides a promising taster of his upcoming LP Patch The Sky. Lovely, stirring stuff.
Nitroville - Louisiana Bone
With a name like Nitroville and a track called Louisiana Bone, you’d think the band might be from somewhere exotic like, well, Louisiana. But no, this hard-rocking quartet are from London, like a cockney Molly Hatchet. And if that description suggests the song might not be very good, think again, for it burns more brightly than a NASCAR pit lane fire.
**Reigning Days - **Renegade
Pitched somewhere between Royal Blood and Guns N’ Roses, Renegade make a noise so big and terrifying that we’ve had to relocate the magazine to a bigger, more robust office. Devastatingly epic.
Devil To Pay - Your Inner Lemmy
Frontman Steve Janiak says Your Inner Lemmy is “a textbook lesson on everything Lemmy was about to us personally.” It also sounds like a long-lost Motorhead song. A nice tribute.
