Eight tracks that’ll change your world if you’ll only let them.
Baroness - Shock Me
With the most triumphant chorus in popular music since Berlioz’s Grande Symphonie Funèbre et Triomphale, the exultant Shock Me is the sound of Baroness exorcising demons and having a wild old time in the process. Like Soundgarden playing Killing Joke, and almost unfathomably epic.
Buck & Evans - Run Cold
Our old pals Buck & Evans are back, and once again they’re trouncing all opposition in the blues rock department, with twinkling guitars, stomping riffs, and a lead vocal performance that’s almost celestial in its soaring magnificence. File under “Christ! Will you get a load of that!”
The VirginMarys - Moth To A Flame
Moth To A Flame is lifted from the band’s forthcoming LP Divides, which is due out on May 6, and while it might not quite scream, “HIT!”, it’s definitely epic, and the kind of swelling, mid-paced rocker that’ll have audiences up and down the land reaching for their cigarette lighters. Did somebody say “power ballad”?
Sumo Cyco - Fuel My Fire
Canadian metal punk weirdos Sumo Cyco continue to baffle and bewilder as they release ever-more demented videos, and Fuel My Fire is no exception. It features men wearing giant gimp skulls, a lady drowning in the bath, the party to end all parties, and a part two you can watch when part one is over. The song’s good, too.
Summer Cannibals – Full Of It
This Portland trio do things like play in bathtubs and sing into toothbrushes, in the name of their latest garage rocking anthem. Mixing scuzzy energy and layers of fuck-you attitude, they follow in the high-octane footsteps of Sleater Kinney and Bikini Kill. Shweet.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - People-Vultures
We wonder if Eddie Izzard is a fan of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. We feel he ought to be, as the band’s spectacular brand of Krautrock-steeped psychedelia is both smart and head-spinning, a bit like one of the cross-dressing comedian’s own routines. New track People-Vultures is a frantic blast of full-frontal freakery.
No Sinner - All Woman
A hard-rockin’ track that originally appeared on Cheryl Dilcher’s otherwise more folksy 1973 album Butterfly, No Sinner’s take on All Woman puts the afterburners on, giving the song a bluesy, snarling veneer, leaving listeners in absolutely no doubt as to who’s in charge. Great stuff.
Volbeat - The Devil’s Bleeding Crown
The opening track to Volbeat’s new Seal The Deal & Let’s Boogie album, The Devil’s Bleeding Crown sounds like the kind of thing that’ll prompt all sorts of fist-pumping action when its wheeled out to the giddy delight of summer festival crowds. In your face, doubters.
