In 2067, when Wytch Hazel are playing their Back To The Beginning show at the Giant Axe Ground, home of Lancaster City F.C., will they look back on our Tracks Of The Week contest as the moment when it all took off?
Probably not, but we'd still like to congratulate the band on the success of The Citadel, which triumphed in our most recent competition after an undeniably titanic battle with Fury's Interceptor. Robert John & The Wreck barely shifted the needle back in third, so we almost didn't mention them at all.
Below, you'll find eight more candidates for rock'n'roll fame and fortune. We hope you enjoy them.
Jack Black feat. Roman Morello, Revel Ian, Yoyoka Soma & Hugo Weiss - Mr Crowley
Anyone who missed the Black Sabbath extravaganza last weekend can console themselves with this highlight from the day’s pre-recorded material. Roman ‘son of Tom’ Morello and Revel ‘son of Anthrax’ Ian are chips off their respective old blocks as they lead this joyful School Of Rock-with-bigger-teeth take on the Ozzy classic. And Jack Black is just so clearly having the best time – not to mention absolutely nailing the vocal – it’s impossible not to feel good as you watch. Would he have made a better MC for the day than Jason Momoa?
Skunk Anansie - Shame
One of the most intimate moments on Skunk Anansie’s clever, shape-shifting new album, The Painful Truth, Shame finds Skin reflecting on her past to commanding, emotive effect. “‘Many of us feel or get unconnected to our families because of the lives we need to lead in order to be happy,” she says, “sometimes they just can’t understand who we are if we are not like them and there’s a lot of shame and hurt in that. Shame is dedicated to those outcasts, to those kids that go on to find new families that support & love them.”
The Hives - Legalize Living
It’s been over twenty years since they broke out internationally, and The Hives are still cranking out gleaming yet gritty floor-fillers like this one (hot off their upcoming album The Hives Forever Forever The Hives, which comes out next month for a crackling dose of summer heat). Cool but saucer-eyed and slightly unhinged, it comes coated in punk shadows and king-sized guitar chops, sirens screaming away in the background. Yep, they’ve still got it.
Angel Du$t - The Beat
A tightly packed fistful of fiery rock and hardcore punk, the Baltimore noiseniks’ new single clocks in at just over two minutes and doesn’t waste a second of it. Part of the same scene that reaped genre-twisting, zeitgeisty rockers Turnstile (some of their members actually started out in that band), Angel Du$t are utterly raging but smart with it on The Beat, slamming you in the face and subtly shifting gears in ways you don’t quite expect.
The Hunna - Hide And Seek
"Hide & Seek tells a story of a midway transitional part of a relationship,” says singer Ryan Potter, of the alt rockers’ moody new anthem. By turns punchy, stirring and blissed out, it’s their first new music in three years. “Built from love & compassion of overcoming the trials & tribulations life can throw at two people yet reaching a point of the natural ebb & flow of life that creates a drifting & transformation between the two."
Halestorm - Rain Your Blood On Me
Were we to curate a list of winners and losers from Black Sabbath's final finale, Lzzy Hale would surely have been amongst the most winningest of those winners, singing with a voice that threatened to lift the very roof off Villa Park. There's more of that on show on Rain Your Blood On Me, a song so epic it sounds like it was hewn from mountains. New album Darkness Always Wins is out next month and threatens to be something of a monster.
38 Special - All I Haven't Said
38 Special have never really been off the road, but they haven't made an album since 2004's Drivetrain. But wait, what's this? Yep, they're back with a new single, All I Haven't Said, which heralds the approach of a 13th studio album, Milestone, out in September. "When you're reintroducing yourself to the world, 'good enough' doesn't work anymore," says founder Don Barnes. "If you're gonna do it, you might as well go big." And is it big? Well, it's certainly a slick, mid-tempo thumper of reasonable size, and we like the organ/guitar solo interplay very much.
Mother Vulture - Treadmill
Perhaps uniquely, Treadmill, the new single from explosive young Bristolians Mother Vulture, contains a verse sung in what we believe is Bulgarian."кажи довиждане на всичко," sings Georgi Valentine. "животът гори с пламък." We've translated that, and it means, "Say goodbye to everything / Life burns with a flame," which is a suitably fiery statement for a song so ablaze with youthful rock chaos that we've had to call an ambulance in addition to the fire brigade. New album Cartoon Violence is out in the new year.
