“A Beast To Praise” contains DARK FUNERAL’s annihilating live-set for their latest studio album release We Are The Apocalypse and will be available in the USA as a Jewelcase CD, gatefold 2LP on 140g vinyl and as a digital album.
On September 11th internationally, Me Saco Un Ojo Records and Rotted are proud to present the highly anticipated second album of Sweden’s Filth, Death Exhibition. Me Saco Un Ojo will release the album in Europe on CD and vinyl LP formats, while Rotted Life will release it in the United States on CD and cassette tape formats. Sweden’s Filth have a knack for fitting […]
We are delighted to report that our feisty New Zealand friends Pieces Of Molly have once again triumphed in our Tracks Of The Week contest, earning themselves a place in the pantheon of rock immortality with a comprehensive victory over These Wicked Rivers and Bywater Call. We’re putting it down to all the meat in the video.
So congratulations to them. And then up it’s Up! Up! And away! As we begin a new contest. Listen hard, vote harder.
Airbourne – Kid In A Candy Store
The latest slice of the Aussie’s long-awaited new album, Kid In A Candy Store is a pensive, understated affair with a surprise acoustic twist… just kidding: it’s AC/DC-baked raunch and balls-to-the-wall boogieing from start to finish, audibly draped in the same torn black denim and tourbus-fresh locks they’ve had since about 2003. It kinda puts us in the mind of their first couple of albums, channeling that same fury and road-dog work ethic. Have you heard it all before, and then some? Yes. Does that really matter? No. Sure to be a blast live.
The Heat Inc – Mind Control
London rock’n’rollers The Heat Inc cook up a haunting yet headbanging swirl of alt/goth 80s flavours and guitar fuzz, without feeling like a mindless throwback – quite the contrary. “This is a long way from being our first rodeo and God knows, we’ve never done it for the money,” they say. “We do it because we love it. There is no other way.” You can hear all that in Mind Control, and it feels all the more strident for it.
The Sheepdogs – Bad For Your Health
Riding the waves of this year’s Keep Out Of The Storm, the Canadian canines have released this gorgeous live version of one of its highlights – the lush yet rocking Bad For Your Health. All glam grooves, vintage threads and warmly toned riffage, it’s both beautifully laidback and the sort of rock’n’roller you can’t help but move to. Good health is overrated anyway, right? Catch them live in the UK this November and December.
The Anchoress – Throw Over Your Man
Enigma, auteur and progressive musical mastermind behind The Anchoress, Catherine Anne Davies is joined by James Dean Bradfield on guitar for this sumptuous taste of her next album, As We Once Were. Billed by Davies as a “celebratory queer rock anthem,” it mixes driving alt, classic rock and folk notes with sensual storytelling in one absorbing cocktail. If Virginia Woolf wrote rock songs instead of novels, having listened to a load of Fleetwood Mac and Kate Bush, she might have come up with this.
The Virginmarys – My Nettle
A fiery, urgent highlight from 2024’s excellent TheHouse Beyond The Fires, My Nettle packs a different kind of punch on this stripped-back rendition. An elegantly desolate slow burner, its bare-bones piano core expands through percussive beats and subtle, stirring string layers into something quietly lush, even as it bristles with raw feeling. Better than the original? No. A thoughtful, compelling sojourn from their fully electric set? Absolutely.
The Temperance Movement – Eat You Alive
Last year these guys reunited for their first shows since before the pandemic. Now, the fruits of that reunion further reveal themselves with this raw, rollicking taste of an all-new studio album, due later this year. Mixing analogue-y Black Crowes-come-Creedence spittle and sugar with classic British rock’n’roll, it’s a sun-dappled opening shot of this next chapter. Sonically not unlike Midnight Black (from their acclaimed debut), but with a sweetly roughened shadow.
Stanley Simmons – Don’t Leave Me Here Like That
Stanley Simmons continue to carve out a niche that’s deliciously distant from their dads, with fifth single Don’t Leave Me Here Like That coming on like Simon & Garfunkel playing a long-lost Tom Petty tune. Or like UK indie verterans Dodgy, with an effervescent, summery vibe, and some 80s pop thrown in for good measure. The duo’s debut LP will be released on August 28, with tour dates following in September and October.
The Band Feel – Summer Song
St. Louis retro-rockers The Band Feel continue their musical mission, which is apparently to pretend that disco and punk and everything that followed never actually followed, and that one can journey safely from 1974 to 2026 without any pesky musical interference whatsoever. Summer Song is exactly as described on the packaging, sounding as if it were created on a hazy July 1974 evening in Laurel Canyon, with the right amount of lightness and whimsy. Debut album What Of Now will be available at your nearest hippie emporium from August 21.
Legendary DC punk institution Fugazi were famously opposed to consumerism, to the point where they wouldn’t even print up their own T-shirts; the “this is not a Fugazi T-shirt” T-shirts that were omnipresent in the ’90s were all bootlegs. Even at a time when plenty of other canonized ’90s cult artists have cashed in on streetwear collabs, Fugazi have continued to abstain from all merchandising. But now there’s also a streetwear brand called Fugazi, which has created some confusion, especially after a recent collab between that brand and Vans.
On July 19th, Eric Ambel and Sophie Gault play Groove in the West Village, and they’re bringing their own kind of heat — the kind you actually want. Ambel’s been running electric current through a guitar for decades, across a solo and production career that’s still going. Gault generates her own voltage, and it runs […]
45 years on since the release of their classic eponymous debut album, Sunnyboys are excited to announce a 4LP vinyl-only box set version of the album as well as a special one-off performance at Brisbane’s Roma Street Parkland, Friday October 23, on the evening of the box set’s release. To be released via Warner Music […]
After spending years on the road with artists such as Booker T. Jones, Kim Wilson and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Troy Mercy finally steps into the spotlight with Let The Night Begin. Rather than treating his solo debut as an opportunity to reinvent himself, Mercy draws heavily from the music that shaped his career. The result is a record rooted in electric blues, garage rock and vintage hard rock, performed with the confidence of someone who has already spent years honing his craft on stages around the world.
Although this is Mercy’s first album under his own name, he is hardly a newcomer. Beyond his years touring with Booker T. and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, he has backed blues heavyweights including Hubert Sumlin, Billy Boy Arnold, Pinetop Perkins and Louisiana Red, while also contributing guitar work to Grammy-nominated recordings with Kim Wilson. That experience is evident throughout the record, particularly in the assured songwriting and the effortless chemistry between the musicians.
Musically, Let The Night Begin is a blues rock record with touches of garage and indie rock, wrapped in a distinctly retro aesthetic. The influence of The Black Keys and The White Stripes is unmistakable, but there are also flashes of the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Rory Gallagher whenever Mercy decides to lean harder into classic rock territory. The production remains intentionally stripped down, allowing crisp, fuzzy riffs, swaggering vocals, and blazing lead guitar work to dominate the mix. Beneath it all, the rhythm section keeps things simple but undeniably effective, providing a solid groove while Mercy handles most of the fireworks.
“Cheap Machine” opens proceedings with a solid mid-paced blues rocker built around a satisfying riff. It is a good introduction without immediately revealing the album’s strongest material. Some of that comes afterward with “Compromised Blues (A Spy Goodbye),” a nasty, hard-hitting blues rocker driven by an incredibly catchy riff and elevated further by an excellent solo section. “Silver Bird” takes a sharp left turn into pre-war blues territory, relying on expressive harmonica passages instead of distorted guitars to deliver one of the album’s more unusual moments. “Love is a Hurt” follows with a slower blues rock approach reminiscent of Free and Cream, while the title track delivers a warm, Zeppelin-flavored groove that quietly gets the job done.
The album reaches its highest point with “Traveling Light,” an outstanding riff-driven rocker featuring dynamic drumming, swaggering vocals, and some of Mercy’s most exhilarating lead guitar work. “Trembling Shadow” revisits traditional front-porch blues before “Who’s Laughing Now” closes the record with slow, heavy riffs that flirt with psychedelia and proto-metal, recalling Black Sabbath and heavier-era Led Zeppelin.
Overall, Let The Night Begin is a confident and promising solo debut that blends vintage influences with enough punch and conviction to sound relevant in the present. Fans of raw, guitar-driven blues rock should find plenty to enjoy here, and if this record is any indication, Troy Mercy’s solo career is certainly one worth keeping an eye on.
The Review: 8/10
Can’t Miss Tracks
– Compromised Blues (A Spy Goodbye) – Silver Bird – Love Is A Hurt – Trembling Shadow – Who’s Laughing Now – Traveling Light
Metallica‘s massive M72 World Tour is finally coming to a close. Three years and 99 shows (100, if we count last year’s Back To The Beginning appearance) since they first set out, metal’s biggest band are retiring the two-night, no repeat format. For now, at least. It’s not the last Metallica gig of the year – they’ve got a residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas starting in October – but there’s a sense of accomplishment as they gear up for one last triumphant blowout at London Stadium.
If the venue will play ball, anyway. Built for the 2012 Olympics, London Stadium has hosted more than a few massive gigs, including the first UK appearance from the reunited core Guns N’ Roses in 2017 and Iron Maiden’s biggest UK gig to date last summer. It also has some of the most reliably awful acoustics in the UK.
Acting like a massive echo chamber, you’ll probably hear as much of AVATAR walking around the outside of the stadium as actually sitting in it. The theatrical Swedes aren’t daunted in the least, however and even if some of the melodic nuances of songs like The Dirt I’m Buried In are lost to the PA, the tunes are so massive and infectiously fun that they triumph nonetheless. For all his usual swagger, vocalist Johannes Eckerström seems genuinely emotional about being on the road with Metallica, adding a “d’aw shucks” warmth to their set.
(Image credit: JENSTHEPANDA)
PANTERA struggle most with sound issues. A little under four years since Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown tagged in Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante to resurrect the brand, the ‘reunion’ is still a big draw and London Stadium starts really filling up for their set. But Anselmo admits he’s having in-ear issues, and his vocals are desperately low in the mix at times, the likes of Fucking Hostile lost in a cacophony that would be unrecognisable if not for just how iconic the tunes are. An added Fairies Wear Boots tribute to Ozzy is a nice touch, but it’s an uphill battle.
Even the UK’s worst venue can’t derail metal’s biggest band. METALLICA already had a triumphant first outing on Friday, but it was obvious they were holding back some of their biggest hits for the closing night. But this isn’t just some perfunctory greatest hits set, either. Thundering out to Whiplash, there’s a moment where it looks like Metallica might be doing a chronological run of their songs as they did at their 40th anniversary celebration with For Whom The Bell Tolls and Ride The Lightning following in quick succession.
They break the run with ReLoad-era tune The Memory Remains, and affirm just how different they are to other stadium-straddling behemoths. The thing is, any band with a suitably big enough hit can make a stadium sing-along feel epic – it’s inherent to the sheer scale of the show. But even with something like Memory, the crowd respond with almighty “whoah-ohs”, cementing a sense of momentousness that is basically Metallica’s bread and butter.
Playing on a stage right in the centre of the stadium, Metallica are the be-all, end-all when it comes to biblical metal gigs. Who else on this planet could get away with a 10-minute instrumental like The Call of Ktulu and not prompt a mass exodus to the bars? From the thundering riffs of 72 Seasons to a pyro-enhanced Moth Into Flame, ballads The Unforgiven and The Day That Never Comes to choice covers of Sabbath’s Electric Funeral (cut with Sex Pistols’ Holidays In The Sun, and dedicated to Ozzy after last year’s BTTB celebration) and Thin Lizzy’s Whiskey In The Jar, there isn’t a song in this set that doesn’t feel absolutely colossal.
Closing on Enter Sandman – a song that could take up at least three entries on the ballot for a metal national anthem – Metallica reaffirm just how they became metal’s biggest band in the first place.
45 years on since the release of their classic eponymous debut album, Sunnyboys are excited to announce a 4LP vinyl-only box set version of the album as well as a special one-off performance at Brisbane’s Roma Street Parkland, Friday October 23, on the evening of the box set’s release. To be released via Warner Music […]