We've collected the votes and the returning officer is standing by, hereby ready to give notice that the results of today's Tracks of the Week election are as follows.
Blackberry Smoke — Shakin’ Hands With The Holy Ghost
Ahh, Blackberry Smoke. “They are lovely”, says Classic Rock’s Assistant Features Editor Polly “Polly” Glass, with a sigh. But that’s not why they’re in. No, they’re in because we love the new live album, Leave A Scar: Live In North Carolina, and a rip-roaring version of this track opens the show.
Weezer — Back To The Shack
Actual sports fact: Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo used to play for a soccer team in Cambridge, Mass. called Breastchester United. We suspect the choice of name wasn’t his. Either way, Weezer still exist at the precise point in the venn diagram where shiny pop and stadium rock intersect, and we should all be thankful for that.
Chrome — Prophecy
Chrome are back! This won’t mean much to many, be in our small corner of the world there’s always been a small, stinky spot for the Californian experimentalists. While this might not be as demented as 1979’s Hawkwind-on-even-more-drugs romp of Zombie Warfare (Can’t Let You Down), it’s still a great noise. Also, Helios Creed is a brilliant name for a musician.
Slipknot — The Negative One
Slipknot are back! New track The Negative One is taken from the forthcoming If You’re Happy And You Know It, Kill Everyone You Know album (we made that up). Whatever you think of the band, there’s no doubt this is about as in-your-face as you can get, and we should all be grateful that someone’s still out there making music designed to unsettle parents. NSFW warning: video contains both scary things and nudity.
Kyng — Electric Halo
Soon to perform on our Lords Of The Riff tour, Kyng (we presume the “y” is there is prevent confusion with that annoying fella who was on MTV in the 80s) are from Los Angeles and are literally made of metal. When we say “literally”, of course, we mean nothing of the sort, but a metal band actually made of metal would be great. If we had such a band, we’d called ourselves Iron Copper, or something like that.
Kingbathmat — Kubrick Moon
We saw them perform at the Resonance Festival in South London last weekend, which made us think of this. It’s taken from album Overcoming The Monster, which sounds like early Black Sabbath crossbred with Pink Floyd at a grunge party. And we all know what happens at a grunge party.
The Datsuns — Caught In The Silver
The new album from The New Zealand’s foremost Classic Rockers is just 34 minutes long. Caught In The Silver, therefore, comprises more than 10% of the the new album, despite being under four minutes in length. We convinced ourselves this meant something, but then changed our minds. Either way, The Datsuns don’t sound much like many famous bands from New Zealand, who tend to be well-known for not rocking very much.
Mount Salem — Lucid
The press release that accompanies this monstrous pile of devil-rock says, “throwing their own twist of dark and mysterious doom into the music, they [Mount Salem] invite the listener to step into their sinister realm. The imagery in the lyrics will take you on a ride in which you won’t know whether to be scared or grab a sword and join the battle.” That’s a pretty silly question, to be honest. It’s a sword, every time.
