38 Special won our Tracks Of The Week competition by a margin so slender you'd struggle to insert a cigarette paper between them and runners-up Halestorm and The Hunna, so we won't even try. It was really that tight. So, congratulations to them all.
Below, you'll find eight more candidates for rock'n'roll fame and infamy. We hope you enjoy their lustrous pelts.
Die Spitz - Throw Yourself To The Sword
Austin foursome Die Spitz got together after watching Motley Crue biopic The Dirt and deciding they needed to start a band. Built on a monstrously thick, dirty gallop of distorted riffage (part Metallica, part stoner basement club losing its mind to Black Sabbath) – singer Ellie Livingston roaring and cavorting her way through a laundrette in the video, armed with a really massive sword – its tone is old-school in one sense but the overall effect is brilliantly vibey and kind of timeless. A hearty appetiser for their new album, Something To Consume, which comes out in September.
Whiskey Myers - Midnight Woman
The East Texans’ sexy latest release is an ode to midnight hour, hits-you-like-a-bullet lust, all chest-vibrating riff swagger and dripping with ragged southern hoodoo and honey. “Midnight Woman is that raw, late-night energy you can’t shake off – part voodoo, part rock ’n’ roll fever dream,” says lead singer/songwriter-in-chief Cody Cannon. “It’s about the kind of woman who doesn’t just walk into your life – she storms in like thunder and leaves you dizzy in her wake.”
Castle Rat - Wolf
More fresh-faced Sabbathian activity now, this time from New York doomsters Castle Rat. Striding, stomping and ultimately charging forward with the regal oomph of a medieval army in gold robes with a few hexes up their sleeves, they make a commanding statement with this latest cut from next album The Bestiary. “The Wolf – fierce, solitary, and primal – serves as both symbol and sentinel,” Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) says, “embodying the shadow self and guiding listeners through peril with instinct and ferocity. The track is a tempest of layered riffs and surging energy, building toward a thunderous, headbanging climax.”
Sheryl Crow - The New Normal
It hardly takes a genius to note that the USA (and the world at large) is in a weird place these days, but it does take a pop maestro like Sheryl Crow to write a fun, feelgood song about it – facing ominous issues of the day honestly, and making you want to dance while she’s at it. Think Beatles-meets-Cheap Trick songcraft, with Sheryl’s own sweet, rootsified spin. Plus she manages to get ‘George Orwell’ in the chorus, and keep it skipping along effortlessly, no painful poser vibes in sight. A class act.
Shinedown - Killing Fields
Muscle-bound hard rockers Shinedown have stirred a few twists into their latest single, moving through delicacy and driving guitars, all of it underscored by king–sized, chest-thumping melody. “The audience is the BOSS,” frontman Brent Smith says, of the song’s meaning, “and they should have the freedom to interpret it the way they hear it, feel it, and experience it. What I will say is that the song is meant to push you, to inspire you to think for yourself, and ask questions... We all know we are living in complicated times... The true question is, how will you respond.”
Amanda Shires - A Way It Goes
Emotionally raw but incredibly poised – in the aftermath of her divorce with Jason Isbell – singer/songwriter/fiddler-extraordinaire Amanda Shires breaks through dark clouds on A Way It Goes. A thoughtful, enveloping piece of storytelling, framed in sumptuous textures and tension, it looks gracefully into the depths of heartbreak, and the business of how we carry on in spite of it. There’s more where this came from on Shires’ next album, Nobody’s Girl.
Dinosaur Pile-Up - Love’s The Worst
It starts out soft, but don’t be fooled – it quickly turns into an emphatic rager. Part brooding, Nirvana-laced grunge-fest, part rousing pop punk banger (think LostAlone via Weezer), Love’s The Worst finds the British alt rockers exorcising all manner of demons, bitter pills and heartache, with a super-catchy chorus to seal the deal. If you’re going through relationship aggro, a breakup or unrequited love, maybe give this a spin.
Bobbie Dazzle - Spotlight
The UK's premier catsuit-wearing glamster Bobby Dazzle is back with her first new song since last year's excellent Fandabidozi album, and it's like Abba, but rockier, and funkier, and bits of it sound like they were recorded in space. There's also a flute solo, which leads into a guitar solo, which leads into a keyboard solo. Remarkable stuff. Catch her on the road with Alice Cooper, Lita Ford, The Sweet and more.
