As sure as night turns out to day, last week's Tracks Of The Week competition has wandered off into the sunset to be replaced by this week's. And, as the credits roll, we're delighted to tell you that Weather Systems, the band formed by ex-Anathema man Daniel Cavanagh, won the contest with their very first official release. So congratulations to him, and to them. And all who ride in her.
Here's their single Do Angels Sing Like Rain? again.
Crossbone Skully came in second, while Spread Eagle snatched the bronze medal, as they say in the Olympics. This week's choices are below.
Dorothy - MUD
Fresh from collaborations with Slash, Nita Strauss and Scott Stapp – since her last album, 2022’s Gifts From The Holy Ghost – Los Angeles-based powerhouse singer Dorothy Martin and her band return with this slick yet fiery hard rocker. All big, oomphy guitars and matching chorus, undercut with nicely blood-curdling screams and barroom swagger, it’s like hearing Halestorm with a heavy modern country twist.
Kyle Daniel - Fire Me Up (feat Maggie Rose)
Hot on the heels of The Cadillac Three, A Thousand Horses, Whiskey Myers and anyone who’s married with yee-haw country flavours with straight-shooting shitkicker rock’n’roll in recent times, Kyle Daniel has a rollicking earworm on his hands in the form of Fire Me Up. A bright-eyed, southern rock banger for summer nights and good times, it’s enough to get you dreaming of sunsets and boozy barbecues in the deep south. Hell yeah.
Elles Bailey - 1972
A warm, sunkissed slice of countrified funk n’ soul (think Little Feat with Susan Tedeschi sitting in), the Bristol songstress’s juicy new single comes with a tongue-in-cheek nostalgia-fest of a video masterminded by Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse duo Robin Davey and Greta Valenti. “This video is a celebration of living in the moment,” Elles says, “looking up, marvelling at nature, enjoying friendships, and being present!” There’s more where this came from on Beneath The Neon Glow, Elles’s next album, which comes out in August.
Jane’s Addiction - Imminent Redemption
Back with their first new song to feature their original lineup in thirty-four years, the alt-rock leading lights soar on Imminent Redemption. Evoking the energy of their late 80s/early 90s high times, it’s a commanding whirl of jagged urgency, expansive tones and oddball sensuality that you’d be genuinely happy to hear in a live set, alongside their more longstanding favourites (Been Caught Stealing, Mountain Song etc etc). The start of more to come? Watch this space and see…
Enumclaw - Not Just Yet
Urgent, woozy and absorbing, Not Just Yet is this Washington quartet’s (they’re named after a city in their home state) ode to band members Aramis Johnson & Eli Edwards’ Uncle Mike – recently diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Full of grungy anger and despair (think Nirvana in a blender with Dinosaur Jr), the track finds Aramis yearning for more time with Uncle Mike, the man who “taught him everything”.
Trucker Diablo - Kill The Lights
Loud, proud and in your face (in a good way), the Irish rockers’ new single kicks off like a less noodly, more beefcake-y cousin of Iron Maiden’s The Trooper and grows from there in satisfyingly raw, bullshit-free fashion. Or, as the band put it, “it’s one of those tunes that can start a one-man office mosh pit and leave you drowned in sweat before your 10 o’clock tea break!” You heard ‘em, put the kettle on and get moshing.
Powder Chutes - Merchants
In which frighteningly youthful New Zealanders Power Chutes take to the hills of Central Otago armed with nothing more than their equipment and an arsenal of riffs that judder, thump and swagger. Merchants – the follow-up to last year's acclaimed Moths To The Flame single – is the first song we've heard from the band's debut album, and is so packed with ideas it could almost double as a library. Nirvana's Breed might be the first book on the shelf, and there's probably a small prog metal section, over there, somewhere near the photocopier.
Jeremie Albino - Rolling Down The 405
A former vegetable farmer turned troubadour, Jeremie Albino's Rolling Down The 405 is described by his representatives as "JJ Cale-meets-Leon Bridges", and we couldn't have put it better ourselves, although we might have thrown Tony Joe White's name in there too. It's rootsy, it's smoother than goose liver paté, and it comes dressed in an old-school production from Dan Auerbach that's as southern-fried and sultry as it is understated. Third album Our Time In The Sun will be out in November.
