This week the more senior members of the Classic Rock team travelled to Los Angeles to award trophies to some of classic rock's most familiar names, but back in the office the relentless search for new and exciting music didn't stop for a single moment. Here are the results of our research.
Blues Pills - No Hope Left For Me If there’d been a category at the Classic Rock Roll of Honour this week for Best Rock Hair, Blues Pills would have surely triumphed. They have magnificent locks, sleek and thick and beautifully-conditioned. You can see their hair live as they embark on a UK tour on Monday, while there’ll be further chances to view their swishing manes as they support Rival Sons in December.
Horisont - Break The Limit This hard-rockin’ five-piece are from Gothenburg, Sweden, and regular readers will be aware that we’re contractually obliged to feature a band from that fair nation every week. “Put the 5 soldiers of Horisont in a time machine 50 years ahead of time and we would still rock the silver socks of any future man, woman or robot”, they say. You can test this assertion next week, as Horisont will be playing the Classic Rock-sponsored Hard Rock Hell festival.
**Love Buzzard - Passion **We don’t know much about Love Buzzard, apart from them being from London and hosting an album launch party at the The Shacklewell Arms on Saturday December 6th, and the fact that Passion is two and and half minutes of scuzzed-up, overdriven garage rock that had us bounding around the office like freshly-shorn ewes.
King Gizzard & His Lizard Wizard - Cellophane From Buzzards to Gizzards and Lizards and Wizards: what a journey it’s been!_ Cellophane_ is a driving, shrieking, psychedelic mental-fest played by young people in red robes who’ve clearly been drinking some sort of dangerous potion. The video is in 3-D, although it doesn’t appear to work with those glasses you nick from the cinema.
Hayseed Dixie - Eye Of The Tiger Always good for a giggle, these banjo-bashing Tennessee hillbillies are back with a new album - Hair Down To My Grass, featuring covers of Europe, Scorpions and, er, Pink Floyd - and 20-date UK tour starting February 2015. This lead-off track, Survivor’s AOR classic, packs a bit of a punch. Arf.
Muck And The Mires - Doreen With dynamite production duo Jim Diamond (White Stripes) and Kim Fowley (Runaways, Kiss) at the controls and Little Steven trumpeting their garage growlin’ genius, Boston’s Muck couldn’t get more hip, even if they were Debbie Harry’s hotpants. Flamin’ groovy, alright.
Dowling Poole - A Kiss On The Ocean When we reviewed the Dowling Poole’s album_ Bleak Strategies_, we were effusive in our praise: “Flawless and exhilarating, this demands to be the soundtrack to all of our waking summer dreams,” we said. Think XTC rugby-tackling the Kinks. Think harmonies. Think sun-kissed psyche-pop. Bonus points for rhyming ‘today’ with ‘José’.
Pint Size Hero - Hunger These thrusting young bucks were recommended by Classic Rock’s Reviews Editor Ian “Ian” Fortnam. Like Royal Blood and Band Of Skulls, they’re fiercely determined to demonstrate that there’s much more to England’s south coast than candy-floss, donkey rides and retirement homes for the elderly.
