From the plethora of top tracks that came out in the past 12 months, these are the ones you need to hear. Some rocked, some rolled, some got down and bluesy, some went up country, and we've embedded a handy Spotify list at the bottom.
Icons & A-Listers - Top tunes from the big guns
The Black Crowes - Rats And Clowns
This crunch-rocker from Happiness Bastards finds the Robinsons saluting the Youngs as only superfans can. “If the record is a love letter to rock‘n’roll,” says Rich Robinson, “then Rats And Clowns is a love letter to AC/DC.”
Smashing Pumpkins - Sighommi
“I think the old-school fans will be happy, for once,” Billy Corgan snarked of Smashing Pumpkins’ thirteenth album, Aghori Mhori Mei, and lead-off single Sighommi is most evocative of the 90s-era Pumpkins’ way with a hook. Savage and wistful in equal measure.
Mick Mars - Right Side Of Wrong
When the guitarist split from Mötley Crüe in 2022, the script had him melting into obscurity. Mars didn’t read it, and while his ex-bandmates unleashed the Dogs Of War, 72-year-old Mars arguably sounds spikier and bitier on this feral thrasher.
Judas Priest - Panic Attack
Priest frontman Rob Halford’s disdain for social media drips from this standout from Invincible Shield, its pulverising gallop offset by the Metal God’s most Darkness-sounding lyrics (‘The clamour and the clatter of incensed keys, can bring a nation to its knees’).
Sheryl Crow - Alarm Clock
With the real world ravaged by war, famine and AI, it’s no wonder Sheryl Crow keeps hitting the snooze button (‘That’s why I hate my alarm clock’, she gripes). For the rest of us, this garage-band fuzz-rocker did the job of six espresso shots.
Lenny Kravitz - Paralyzed
It began as a workaday jam with bandmate Craig Ross, but Paralyzed grew into a stately synth-rock epic, complete with squiggly talkbox solo, and a Dune-style video featuring Len getting felt up by a harem of bedouin maidens.
Deep Purple - Show Me
We were all ears when Purple kicked off =1, with their new guitarist Simon McBride building Show Me from an urgent chime to a funky vamp before dropping a solo that sounds like it’s sampled from Sonic The Hedgehog.
The Cure - A Fragile Thing
Sixteen years since 4:13 Dream, few seriously expected Robert Smith to drag Songs Of A Lost World over the line in 2024. Miraculously, the Cure leader not only signed it off, but also caught a little of the old magic in this bleak courtship dance of skeletal piano and industrial drums.
Big F★★K-Off Riffs - Big hitters of today and tomorrow
Devin Townsend - PowerNerd
The title track from arguably the Canadian rock maverick’s strongest album in years, PowerNerd is a punchy, expansive encapsulation of his heavy, dreamy and good-humoured sides. A hyperactive yet laser-focused, super-hooky swirl of big feelings and empowerment for ‘power nerds’ everywhere.
Crossbone Skully - Everyone’s On Dope
It’s hardly insightful music journalism to point out that the best tune so far from Tommy Henriksen’s project sounds exactly like AC/DC. From the cludding beat and riff-raff to the throat-flaying shriek, these boys have everything except the school blazer – but that’s a good thing.
Battlesnake - Motorsteeple
Imagine Judas Priest, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ghost in one riffy package, styled by Terry Gilliam after a particularly industrial-strength cheese dream… That probably makes these Aussies sound unhinged, so you’ll have to trust us when we say this (the title track from their latest album) is brilliant.
The Southern River Band - Vice City III
The Aussie rock’n’rollers marry the chunky boogies of AC/DC with the nastiness of Guns N’ Roses on this highlight from 2024’s D.I.Y. So oomphy and ripping it’ll put tattoos on your skin and a moustache (like frontman Cal Kramer’s) on your face after just one listen. If motorbikes made music, it would sound like this.
Royal Republic - My House
When the Swedish rockers nailed this monster-banger, they knew everything was going to be fine with their next album, LoveCop. You can see why. Part nuclear-grade disco boogie, part biting hard rock riff-fest – with a Beastie Boys detour in the bridge – you wouldn’t want to be the band following it up on a festival line-up.
The Hot Damn! - Automatic
One debut album, so many bangers, but we’re including Automatic here for it’s ultra-hooky, air guitar-friendly properties. Feeling a little lethargic? Need a firm but loving kick up the arse? Crank this guy up, dance, and get shit done.
The Karma Effect - All Night Long
They only formed in lockdown, but these Brits rock with the swaggering panache of a much more long-in-the-tooth bunch. If you like Aerosmith and The Black Crowes – and miss the retro revivalism of The Temperance Movement – you need this.
Bluesy Bootstompers - Tasty shades of blues and roots
Black Country Communion - Stay Free
Given that syncing all four diaries for BCC is seemingly harder than solving a Rubik’s Cube, the music had better be worth it – and this squelch-funk cousin to Led Zep’s Trampled Underfoot struck up the V campaign in style.
Sadler Vaden - Staying Alive
Jason Isbell will be lucky to get his sideman back: this year’s Dad Rock album revealed a singer-songwriter who deserves his own spotlight, and Vaden’s take on Staying Alive (The Whigs curio, not the Bee Gees standard) sums up the album’s golden crunch.
Brave Rival - Five Years On
A visceral blues strut and V-sign wafted at the early doubters, Five Years On toasts the Portsmouth band’s first half-decade and manifests their world domination. ‘Don’t you push me down,’ co-holler Lindsey Bonnick and Chloe Josephine, ‘you’d better believe I’m sticking around’.
Troy Redfern - The Strange
It turns out Herefordshire’s blues cowboy is very good at goodbyes, using the admittedly hackneyed set-up of a toxic relationship to deploy his nastiest fuzz pedals and most stinging slide licks. Stick around for the enjoyably wonky guitar solo.
Larkin Poe - Bluephoria
Over summer, the Lovell sisters trailed next year’s Bloom with a song they billed as “a rumination on the duality of the human experience”. In practice, Bluephoria is more hips than head, driven by levee-breaking beats and a capella vocals that you feel in your bones.
Big Special - This Here Ain’t Water
If The Streets’ Mike Skinner – an old friend from the Black Country – fronted an apocalyptic blues band, the result might sound like Big Special’s breakthrough tune, where seismic beats and howls of the damned collide with Brummie gallows humour.
Retro Bangers & Psychedelic Party-Starters - If bell-bottoms are involved, they’re in
Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse - Oh Yeah!
Greta Valenti, Robin Davey and co. have gone down various musical rabbit holes over the years. On this single from the brilliant Hot Nostalgia Radio album they’re just here for a good time – a really good time, complete with pounding keyboards, Time Warp-esque energy levels and a melody you can’t help but sing along to.
Rosalie Cunningham - Timothy Martin’s Conditioning School
The former Purson mastermind’s latest solo album was made entirely in her own studio. Based on this exhilarating, ambitious highlight, we’d say it gave her the space to make the psychedelic tour de force she’s long had in her. Sumptuous, clever yet catchy stuff.
Creeping Jean - Sassy Got Shakes
Our favourite track from the rising Brighton stars’ excellent Business Is Dead, this is retro fodder of the highest order, with a groove as thick as an anaconda – wrapped in vintage paisley scarves. It’s not difficult to picture them opening for Rival Sons, which they did earlier this year.
The Sheepdogs - Take Me For A Ride
The Canadian five-piece kick off their Paradise Alone EP with this “good old-fashioned dumb rock song” – a 70s glam-stomping delight with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in its lungs and cowboy boots on its feet. If you don’t like it, you’re probably reading the wrong magazine.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Le Risque
After 14 years and about 500 studio albums (okay, fine, 26; maths was never our strong point) the Melbourne psych rockers knocked out one of their juiciest singles yet, in the form of this stompy, fuzzy marriage of 70s glam, gang vocals and Frank Zappa-esque missives about adrenaline rushes, recreational gravedigging, Evel Knievel and more.
Bobby Dazzle - Merry-Go-Round
Hot off the Midlands rockers’ new album Fandabidozi, Merry-Go-Round capitalises on their influences (The Sweet, T.Rex, Suzi Quatro…) but stands on its own mega-riffed, platform-booted feet – taking a dreamlike detour into Prog Land with a flute solo and some tasty keyboard wizardry. Nice.
Moon City Masters - Keep Dreaming
The Brooklyn brother duo keep on delivering (and improving, even) with this glowing humdinger of an ear worm. Warm, funky and immaculately harmonised, like a Day-Glo dreamscape lined with palm trees and roller-discos. Dangerously addictive.
Ballads & Brooding Moments - The softer side of rock’n’roll’s finest
Massive Wagons - Night Skies
Still daft as a brush when you hold out a dictaphone, but rapidly growing a social conscience on record, the Lancaster band’s seventh album Earth To Grace peaked with this glistening power ballad, urging the countless men at the end of their rope to reach out, not check out.
Austin Gold - Not Enough
The best track on these Peterborough rockers’ new album is also one of their best overall – a stirring embodiment of the big, bittersweet melodies and classy rock tones they do so well, lyrically drawing from dark personal times for singer/guitarist David James Smith (much of which comes from his decision to quit drinking).
Beth Hart - You Still Got Me
Once a lost soul – and still prone to wobbles – Hart’s redemptive relationship with her road manager inspired this orchestral ballad. Sung by anyone else it might sound trite, but Hart has earned the sentiment, and it’s quite a thing to hear her life-ravaged roar among the strings.
Blackberry Smoke - Azalea
Listening to this in light of the band’s drummer Brit Turner’s death this year (not to mention, more recently, of their longtime British publicist Michelle Kerr) gives this gorgeous acoustic-based ballad an extra level of poignancy. A tender evocation of the hope and heartache endemic in life on this mortal coil.
Marcus King - Delilah
Nudged from his comfort zone by producer Rick Rubin, the South Carolina guitarist sounds markedly different on his third album Mood Swings. Heartsick ballad Delilah bridges the old and the new, offering the albums’s only long-form virtuoso solo.
Bywater Call - Colours
This Canadian rock’n’soul collective give the Tedeschi Trucks Band a run for their money on Colours, not least thanks to Meghan Parnell’s gorgeously rich, honeyed vocals that sound imbued with the nuances and yearning that make Susan Tedeschi such a force.
Nate Bergman - Back To Nashville
Since parting ways with reggae-rockers Lionize, frontman Nate Bergman has come into his own as a singer and songwriter of real class. On Back To Nashville he hits the sort of notes and storytelling beats that say ‘Sam Cooke’ and ‘Bruce Springsteen’, often in the same breath. One to watch.
Firebrands, Punks & Alt.Rockers - They’re here, they’re raging, they’re coming for you…
LowLives - Freaking Out
The British rockers’ debut gets off to a raring start with this raw-throated yet fiercely melodic headbanger, a whirlwind of 90s grunge, early Foo Fighters and Green Day vibes. Exhilarating, breakneck stuff with a brooding heart.
The Virginmarys - White Knuckle Riding
The Macclesfield duo evoke the raw power and T-bone steak riffage of their debut, wrapped in one of 2024’s most incendiary cries of despair. The voice of a troubled heart, reflecting a generation left behind with more fire and eloquence than almost any of their peers manage.
Amyl & The Sniffers - U Should Not Be Doing That
These Aussie punk/pub rock big-hitters are at their smartest, funniest and fiercest on U Should Not Be Doing That, taking aim at singer Amy Taylor’s more brain-dead critics. Plus that bass line is one of the fattest, grooviest things we’ve heard all year.
Bad Nerves - Plastic Rebel
From an album full of absurdly catchy, punk-sized singles, Plastic Rebel has that marriage of sugar and human yearning present in all the best powerpop songs. Slightly longer than the average Bad Nerves choon (but still compact), it burrows its way into your heart and stays there.
The Mysterines - Sink Ya Teeth
In a parallel universe, we’re all 21 again, losing our inhibitions at the world’s coolest house party, and Sink Ya Teeth is the soundtrack. Built on a woozy yet pounding one-note guitar hook, it’ll make you feel drunk in a sexy way just by listening to it.
The Jesus Lizard - Hide & Seek
Fresh from their justifiably lauded latest album Rack, Hide & Seek is the thrusting, insistent sound of these alt.rock heroes refusing to compromise standards or rest on their laurels. So much more than anyone had a right to expect, 26 years on from their last studio release.
It’s Prog, Jim… but not necessarily as we know it
The Pineapple Thief - The Frost
One of these British progressive stalwarts’ most commanding singles yet, The Frost (taken from the excellent It Leads To This) balances straight-up rocking with deft electronics, complex beats and Bruce Soord’s fragile yet warm, penetrative tenor.
David Gilmour - Dark And Velvet Nights
Everyone knows That David Gilmour can do the spacey, reverb-soaked guitar stuff in his sleep, but it’s good to hear him get a little down ’n’ dirty on this solo album highlight, which opens with a squeal of feedback and references a ‘night of hard drinking and ecstacy’.
Koyo - Hooked
Back in 2017 these progressive mavericks from Leeds wowed us with their self-titled debut. Now they’re back with a harder-hitting energy, psychedelic ambiance and flashes of noodly dexterity on this standout banger from their new album Onism. Big and clever.
Tim Bowness - A Stand Up For The Dying
By turns wistful, dreamlike and beautifully strange, tender vignette A Stand Up For The Dying was the first thing we heard from Bowness’s boundary-blasting new record Powder Dry – at London’s Hope & Anchor, ahead of its release this year. Quietly heartbreaking, spine-tingling stuff.
Steve Hackett - People Of The Smoke
Hackett has a vivid take on the 1950s London of his youth, and this standout from The Circus And The Nightwhale leads us through an evocative soundscape where sirens wail, babies cry, radios crackle and shady figures emerge through pea-soup fog. It’s like a time machine with added shredding.
Big Big Train - Beneath The Masts
After the sudden death of their frontman David Longdon in 2021, these Brit progressives’ future was thrown into question. Now that future looks bright; they honour the pastoral sensibilities of their past and begin a new chapter on this epic ode to founder Greg Spawton’s childhood home town, and the heartbreaking truths of mortality.
Marjana Semkina - Anything But Sleep
Few singers manage to sound sweet and chilling in the way that Iamthemorning’s Marjana Semkina does. Teamed up with Caligula’s Horse vocalist Jim Grey, the dark folk/prog songstress creates a cutglass, Tori Amos-infused spiral of pastoral warmth and haunted dreams on this highlight from her latest solo album.
