They'll be dancing in the streets of Sunderland as news breaks of Thieves Of Liberty's triumph in the most recent edition of our Tracks Of The Week skirmish. Their recent single, Sick Pup, beat out the stiffest of competition from both Rosalie Cunningham and The Hot Damn! to take home the biggest prize in rock outside the Grammys, so congratulations to them. And, indeed, the others.
This week it's another eight entries, and eight fresh reminders of rock'n'roll's unique ability to keep things interesting.
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Quireboys - I Think I Got It Wrong Again
After so much infighting in the QBs camp, it was something of a relief to find that the new music – Spike’s line-up, with Luke Morley from Thunder on guitar – was pretty fucking good. I Think I Got It Wrong Again showcases the vital rock'n'roll ingredients you can expect on their incoming album Wardour Street. The rhythm is louche and swingin’. The guitars are beautifully Stones-y. Spike sounds like Rod Stewart after about fifty fags. Throw in some bright, barroom piano flourishes and a cracking solo from Mr Morley, and you can practically taste the late-night smoke and last orders from Soho all-nighters of yore. Good times, in other words.
Bywater Call - Now And Never
Billed as a fun take on dysfunctional romantic relationships, the Canadian rock’n’soul collective’s latest is a horn-parping barrel of New Orleans-ified bourbon and honey. “It’s quirky and sexy and celebratory all at once,” says singer Meghan Parnell, not unreasonably. Propelled by some unctuous brass and sax, and Parnell’s standout Susan Tedeschi-inflected vocals, Now And Never shimmies and bounces with old-school warmth and the sort of from-the-heart quality that feels timeless.
SKAM - Rising Fever
Inflamed by some keyboard warrior responses to his band’s last single, singer/guitarist Steve Hill does what any self-respecting rocker would do: grabs a guitar, walks out into a field (mics, amp stacks and drums ready all set up) and rocks out. Thus begins the video and moody, emphatic new hard rocker from the Leicester three-piece. “The lyrics are about all of the so-called 'industry experts' we have come across over the years who have told us to write songs a certain way, or look a certain way,” says drummer Neal Hill. “We aren't built that way, and never will be, so this is for them!"
Marjana Semkina - Anything But Sleep
The Iamthemorning singer’s high, glassy soprano pairs brilliantly with Caligula’s Horse frontman Jim Grey on this darkly ethereal new single. Part dark folk fairytale, part sumptuous, Tori Amos-voiced prog ballad, it comes with one of Semkina’s most stylish, enveloping videos yet, shot in sun-dappled fields and coastlines. “Jim has one of the most beautiful voices and hearing him on my song and singing with him was such a special experience,” says Semkina, an active campaigner against the Russian occupation in Ukraine (the darkness of which feeds into her new album Sirin). "The song in my true fashion is about a dead girl haunting her abusive former lover and gradually driving him insane, something I definitely will do when I die.”
Koyo - Electric Eel
Another visceral, hard-grooving ripper from the Leeds alt/progressive rockers’ upcoming comeback record Onism. Moving between bouncing riffs, heavy textures and delicate, atmospheric passages, the overall effect is like a dream with some jarring twists – the good kind. Like previous single Hooked, it finds them deploying their technical prowess in a smart way, serving the song and not smothering it. “You have to know fear,” the band say of the song’s themes. “If you’re too nice and too naive you’ll get stomped on. The electric eel is the all-knowing god of experience and fear. He’s seen it all! ”
Last Train - Home
So this one’s a little bit of a wildcard, but it’s such a daring, interesting one we had to include it. The clever, suspenseful brainchild of French rockers Last Train, Home is a dark and twisty audio-visual ride, but it’s worth sticking with til the end. We picked up flavours of punk, metal, industrial and alt-rock but couldn’t confidently lump it in any of those camps. The internet has compared them to Muse but this is weirder than that, with its sparse, menacing intro to the insistent beat, startling metallic blasts, the silence in the middle, the slow-burn intensity… A rare breed.
Joanne Shaw Taylor - All The Things I Said
Comfortably more than ‘just’ a blues-rock guitar whizz for a while now, the Black Country-born, US-based singer/axe-slinger brings a contemporary soul-pop lightness with a side of longing to the Telecaster-tastic All The Things I Said – deep feelings, worn lightly. “This is the first song I wrote for the new album,” Joanne says. “It’s about reflecting on a past relationship and accepting your part in its failure as well as asking your ex-partner to do the same. It’s also about how you can reflect on a love relationship and with the benefit of time you can see how you could have done things differently.” We can all relate to that, can’t we?
Velvet Rush - Euphonia
Euphonia is the debut single from Hamburg rockers Velvet Rush (presumably not named in tribute to American power-poppers Velvet Crush), whose mission statement is to "revive the energy and passion of 70s hard rock." They succeed from the very first note as singer Sandra Lian unleashes an unaccompanied, banshee wail before the rest of the band kickstart the song proper, powering it in the direction of AC/DC and an extremely lively chorus. Produced by Eike Freese – who's previously worked with the likes of Deep Purple, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Helloween and Alice Cooper – it's very much "watch this space" territory.
