This week we became excited by many things, not least the appearance in our ears of these eight examples of the fine art of rocking.
Goat — Hide From The Sun Like Tinariwen via the B-52s via The Doors via Satan himself, Goat’s latest sacrifice to the gods of music is a frankly terrifying mix of pagan ritual and men dressed in cloven-hoofed onesies. Bleats working for a living.
AC/DC — Play Ball What can we say about AC/DC? Not much, as it happens, other than life is immeasurably better when the band are on form, and they’re on form here. Welcome back gents, you’ve been missed.
In Search Of Sun – Draw The Line There’s something a bit disconcerting about bald men head-banging. We think it should be a licensed activity, and hair length taken into account before the granting any kind of legal document. But that’s by the by: In Search Of Sun are a South London quintet whose monstrous, juddering soundscapes will shatter your brain like a tractor crushing a waffle.
The Bloodhounds — Try A lIttle Reefer This rollicking portion of old-fashioned R&B sounds like it might have been recorded at the Ealing Jazz Club in 1962, so similar is it to Mick and Keef and the other fellas. It’s great. But don’t try a little reefer, because that’s a sure route to madness. Reefer madness.
Buck & Evans - Ain’t No Moonlight (Live at Rockfield Studios) “Imagine if Eric Clapton sat with Mama Cass, or Joe Bonamassa with Ann Wilson, or Stevie Ray Vaughan sat with Adele…you’ll get the vibe”. That’s what this duo ask us to picture, and we’ve done so. And we’ve decided that what they’re really saying is, “Look! a man who plays mighty fine blues guitar and a lady with a voice that’s big!” And that actually requires very little imagination at all. Especially when it’s as good as this.
Flying Colors - A Place in Your World What will Mike Portnoy do next? There’s no way of telling, and besides, he’s probably done it by the time you’ve finished reading this sentence. We love Flying Colors here at the Classic Rock office, and we’ll all be heading down to their London show on Monday and hopping about from foot to foot like dads at a wedding because we don’t know how you’re meant to move to the band’s sleek mix of AOR, jazz-rock and prog stylings.
Dedwardians — Love Sick The press release describes the band’s latest recordings as “twisted rockabilly-goes-glam, surf rock stompers”, and who are we to argue? Love Sick is precisely that, a howling mishmash of quiff and riff.
Wolfborne — Sex Sells Last time we checked, there were exactly 1000 bands with the word ‘Wolf’ in their name. This list was very deeply flawed, however, as it didn’t include the only band with ‘Wolf’ in the name to be produced by famed producer Garth ‘GGGarth’ Richardson. Anyway, Wolfborne will be touring the UK later this month with SOiL, American Head Charge and (hed) p.e, and this is their first single.
