Happy Friday folks and welcome to Classic Rock’s Tracks of the Week, in which we invite you to choose your favourite from this select list of hot new stuff (and one lovely old thing). First of all, however, we celebrate last week’s winners in reverse order:
3. Robert Plant – Bones Of Saints
2. Blitzen Trapper – Rebel
1. Starcrawler – Let Her Be
Who shall triumph this week? Goodness knows, but you have the power to decide. Use it wisely, use it well and VOTE at the foot of this page. Once you’ve given last week’s first prize act another spin:
The Picturebooks – Zero Fucks Given
The first of our Tracks of the Week comes from Gütersloh’s most Southern-sounding exports The Picturebooks. Zero Fucks Given is a wonderfully sweary, sweaty affair, mixing heavy stomping rhythm with dirty garagey blues guitar – plus some high-energy live footage and shots of happy fans and dark backstage spots.
Marilyn Manson – We Know Where You Fucking Live
Sweary tune number two comes from the God Of Fuck himself Marilyn Manson. Here he cuts a stylish figure in industrial-tinged rock aggression – groovy and menacing. Nice.
Europe – Walk The Earth
Sweden’s melodic rock legends return with the title track from their brand new album, which can be yours to keep as of October 20. Continuing from the assured rock statesmanship of (2015 album) War Of Kings, this is a classy slab of moody yet propulsive hard rock – complete with tasty solo axework from John Norum.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Little Thing Gone Wild
Woah it’s like it’s 2001 all over again – in a really good way, mind you, as the most gothed-up men of San Francisco return with this gritty, commanding taste of upcoming album Wrong Creatures. They’ve had their ups and downs over the years, but based on this they could be back to their old-school best…
The Rolling Stones – She’s A Rainbow
For a total change in tone, how about some hippie-tastic Stones fun? She’s A Rainbow was originally released in 1967 (as part of Their Satanic Majesties Request), and you can totally tell – all those gentle pianos, acoustic guitars and lovely colours.
Sabotage – Going Nowhere
Combining strains of Rival Sons and Scorpion Child (plus hearty evidence of a heaving collection of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin records), this Toulouse-based outfit play robust classic rock with a suave psychedelic side; as exhibited on Going Nowhere. If we’re honest it’s probably a minute too long, but there’s still loads of good stuff to lap up here.
Aviator Shades – Freedom Lies Bleeding
More delectable classic rock in younger hands now, courtesy of these Vancouver dudes. They’ve benefited from some Mike Fraser production wizardry (he of AC/DC and Aerosmith fame), and it’s given this earnest, swaggering number some A-list boldness.
Mike Tramp – Work It All Out
We’ll leave you today with the latest output from Danish singer/songwriter Mike Tramp (you’ll know him from White Lion – the 80s-90s glam/hard rock outfit he formed with now-reclusive guitar virtuoso Vito Bratta). Musically it’s all breezy, easy-on-the-ear rock’n’roll, ready to soundtrack office departures and weekend drives out of town everywhere. You almost don’t realise how cynical some of those lyrics are (“my knees they don’t work, my teeth they ain’t real…I wish I was young and had my long hair…”).
