With precisely 50% of our new Tracks Of The Week contenders named after animals, it's perhaps fitting that last week's winner also fits the bill, with Samantha Fish collecting 34% of the overall vote with her Sweet Southern Sounds.
Trailing in Fish's wake were Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown and glam rock legends Sweet, but they all deserve our congratulations.
Below are this week's contenders. Vote for your favourite, or don't. It's up to you. We'd prefer the former, obviously.
Battlesnake - The Fathers Of Iron Flesh
Back with a gloriously hooky bang – and proof of what can be done with total commitment to a ridiculous storyline and no budget whatsoever – Aussie rifflords Battlesnake come bearing the sort of industrial-grade-weirdo concept that, in lesser hands, would get old very quickly. But with such a thick, juicy groove, glittering twin-lead lines and the sort of chorus you can’t *not* roar along to, it just made us all smile a lot at Classic Rock HQ. Altogether now… “IRON JAW FIRE BREATH!”
Those Damn Crows - Dreaming
On 2023’s Inhale/Exhale the Welsh rockers raised their song game, equipping themselves for the bigger stages they’d soon be playing (on tour with Hollywood Vampires, Goo Goo Dolls, and as headliners). Now they’ve raised it again with Dreaming. Our latest taste of their next album, God-Shaped Hole, it’s a warm, classic-sounding rush of moody 90s textures (think Pearl Jam or Stone Temple Pilots, with a beefy touch of Creed) imbued with a brightness that’s very much theirs. We can’t stop playing it – always a good sign.
Brass Camel - Borrowed Time
Ultra-funky classic rock with a kind of proggy twist now, courtesy of Vancouver’s Brass Camel. Hinged on a big, squelchy rib-eye of a riff, Borrowed Time struts, swaggers and dips into concise, freaky little tangents with a smoothness that’s cool and cocky but ever so slightly weird – like a jacked-up high school jock with a secret fantasy cosplay club. Like the sound of that? Keep your ears peeled for their next album, which is due out in March.
Blues Pills - What Has This Life Done To You
Rather hidden away at the back end of Blues Pills' 2024 album Birthday, What Has This Life Done To You finds the band in soulful, reflective form, but the chorus lifts affairs well above the ordinary. It's the kind of song you can imagine Adele covering, with Zack Anderson's standout guitar solo matching the ambition of Elle Larsson's vocal, and while some fans might prefer the hard rock and psychedelia of the band's earlier work, this is strong game indeed.
Black Eyed Sons - Cowboys In Pinstriped Suits
A heartfelt, unexpectedly tender tribute to the glitter-booted forefathers of yore, Cowboys In Pinstriped Suits finds the Black Eyed Sons in harmonious cahoots with Joe Elliott – glam rock’s proudest advocate if ever there was one. “This video features the cover star of our album (I call him the Ziggy Kid ),” Guy Griffin says. “He could be any of us, the ones who grew up dreaming of rock'n’roll in a golden era for music. The video’s a surreal glam rock dystopian space-age adventure condensed into four and a half minutes. We hope you enjoy it’’
Brian D’Addario - Till The Morning
The oldest Lemon Twigs brother, and probably their most natural balladeer, Brian D’Addario creates a beautifully Beatles-y, bittersweet mood on the title track of his upcoming solo record. "It's a love song having to do with those fleeting moments when you grasp something real, amidst all the noise and propaganda,” Brian says. “‘The night is pitch black until the morning.’ Maybe things need to completely collapse before they get better."
Gorilla Riot - Wait On
"Wait On is an honest love song about longing for something that you know is bad for you,” says frontman Arjun Bhishma, these Manchester rockers’ dulcet, rootsy new release (taken from their latest album Salvation) with Alice In Chains in its veins and a slow, hypnotic, dirty-blues sway. In one sense you’re kind of waiting for it to explode, but actually that restraint might also be its superpower, keeping you engrossed until the last chord.
Jimmy Barnes - New Day
With successful heart surgery and a hip replacement in his recent past, it's little wonder Aussie legend Jimmy Barnes is in a battling mood, and New Day finds him looking back but ready to move on, with a spirited song that shares musical DNA with Tom Petty's Learning To Fly. "Now that the album is finished, I can see there’s a recurring theme about the satisfaction you can get from fighting back," says the former Cold Chisel man. "That’s why it’s called DEFIANT!” The album is out on June 6.
