Hello, and welcome to Essential Guitar Tracks. As you may well know, every seven days (or thereabouts), we endeavor to bring you a selection of songs from across the guitar universe, all with one thing in common: our favorite instrument plays a starring role.
Our goal is to give you an overview of the biggest tracks, our editor’s picks and anything you may have missed. We’re pushing horizons and taking you out of your comfort zone – because, as guitarists, that’s something we should all be striving for in our playing.
So, here are our highlights from the past seven days – now with a Spotify playlist…
The Rolling Stones – Angry
Six decades removed from their first album, the Stones continue to roll on… Angry – the feisty lead single from Hackney Diamonds, the band's first studio album of new material in 18 years – shows that the cries of “hang it up already!” will continue to be happily shrugged off by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood.
It wouldn't be the post-Mick Taylor Stones without a bedrock of Keef/Ronnie riff ‘n’ lead-weaving, of course, but Angry has a 21st century pop (perhaps courtesy of Producer Of The Moment Andrew Watt) that continues in their tradition of using only the modern spices they need, while refraining from blind trend-chasing, and remaining true to themselves. (JM)
Upchuck – Freaky
An unsettling blend of rumbling bass, deteriorating fuzz and rusty six-string squeaks, Freaky is a fun, but dark, torrent of thundering skate punk. Upchuck have previously toured with Australian upstarts Amyl and the Sniffers – a pairing that makes absolute sense on the evidence of Freaky’s sticky noise. (MP)
Dead Poet Society – Running in Circles
Modern alt-rock has no shortage of blockbuster bands, but LA’s Dead Poet Society not only have the hooks, but a distinctive approach to tone. Splatty direct fuzz, spooky modulated overdubs and, heck, even Strandbergs are the order of the day on Running in Circles and the sonic results are explosive. (MAB)
Måneskin – Honey (Are You Coming?)
“You literally say this about a new band every year, what makes this one the one who will Bring Rock Back To The Charts?” We understand the skepticism, but man, it’s hard to argue with the belter of a riff Thomas Raggi contributes to the new single from the Eurovision winners. Combine that with the high-flying bridge and chorus, and this tune is as good a candidate as any to claim the aforementioned crown. (JM)
All Get Out – Come Back Around
The South Carolina folk rockers have issued this taster of their forthcoming self-titled album. It’s a compelling blend of Manchester Orchestra’s exuberant desperation and Band of Horses’ effortless knack for a jangling melody. (MP)
The Gaslight Anthem – Little Fires
It couldn’t have been easy for the Gaslight Anthem to pick a single to follow up History Books – a bulldozer of a tune for which the beloved punk outfit recruited the ultimate New Jersey rock icon, Bruce Springsteen. Little Fires, though, has the gusto to match even that song, with Johnny Ramone downstrokes, a positively heroic, Thin Lizzy-channelling solo with incredible per-note mileage (lead guitarist Alex Rosamilia truly puts on a vibrato and bending clinic) and one of the band’s trademark killer choruses. (JM)
Shylmagoghnar – Follow the River
Look, we’re not going to try to tell you how to pronounce the band name. But what we will say is that Shylmagoghnar inject black metal with a healthy dose of prog DNA – Follow the River is an eight-minute epic chock-full of hooky guitar lines welded to relentless drums, but you also get delicate acoustic sections, piano tinklings and borderline piratical tapping leads. Heck yeah. (MAB)
UK indie rock appears to be in vibrant form, stretching its wings from the post-punk greyness of recent years. Divorce’s Scratch Your Metal is driven by a raw, yet colorful and inventive patchwork of shuffling, scratchy and, seemingly, mismatched guitar work laid across a darkly thudding bass – and it all somehow winds up magically swaying its hips. (MP)
MTVoid – MaBeLu
Tool’s resident bass wizard Justin Chancellor turns his hand to both four- and six-strings in his electronic crossover act MTVoid, a collaboration with Sweet Noise/Serce vocalist Peter Mohamed. There’s an undeniable Nine Inch Nails vibe to MaBeLu, which finds Chancellor digging into his mammoth pedal collection for a wealth of soundscape-worthy tones. The duo’s second album, Matter’s Knot, Pt. 1, is due out in November, and said to be a “pan-dynamic tapestry of sound and thought, twisted together and pulled taut”. (MAB)
Also on this week’s playlist…
- '68 – Removed Their Hooks
- Gong – Tiny Galaxies
- Marika Hackman – No Caffeine
- Robben Ford – Anto'nate'n'tate (Live)
- Ida Mae – Feel the World Turning
- Coach Party – Be That Girl
- Mother Vulture - Go Big or Go Home
- Kvelertak – Endling
- Jacket Thief – TLFN
- Harms Way – Undertow (feat. King Woman)
- Trevor Rabin – Push
- Graveyard – Breathe In Breathe Out
- G.U.S.H. – I Hate Myself
