In 2023, US rockers Nectarous released ‘Whiskey Hustlin’ Woman’, a great single that flaunted a massive 70s influence. The way it blended the Southern Style of Lynyrd Skynyrd with a dose of 90s style funk rock – particularly notable through an infectious guitar riff – was particularly cool, if never entirely fashionable. In some ways, it set the band in place as a more melodic Black Stone Cherry, and more than suggested there would be more great music ahead.
Watch: Wird share new video for ‘Lies’
Formed during the pandemic of 2020, Wird are a London based band who revel in big riffs and grungy noises. Taking various influences from the 90s, they shared their ‘Screwed’ debut in 2022, which immediately cast itself in a Puddle of Mudd vein with its post-Nirvana Cobain-isms, and chugging approach, before ‘Clown’ took the band into slightly heavier climes with the aid of copious amounts of feedback and a sludgy guitar riff that equalled a number of second division grunge acts.
Watch: Brighton’s The Rattlebacks share new video for ‘Dementia Lounge’
Brighton based rock band The Rattlebacks have really put their stamp on 2024 with a couple of excellent singles. Here’s another: ‘Dementia Lounge’ doesn’t just capture the band’s gift for riffs, but improves on previous efforts by delivering much more of a direct punch.
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #71
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual tracks that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. This time out we bring you a synth based banger, a strange and trippy singer songwriter, a cheeky 60s throwback, some big rock sounds from a rising band and more besides. Hopefully, there’s something here that will entertain, and encourage you to dig just a little further.
SOUL ASYLUM – Slowly But Shirley
For the UK audience, Soul Asylum will be best remembered for an all too brief moment in the early to mid 90s when the band gained regular exposure on MTV. Their 1992 album ‘Grave Dancer’s Union’ gave them a belated smash hit, and with a lot of years’ distance it’s still very easy to understand why. The record’s noisier fare connected with an alternative crowd looking for something more melodic than the grunge that dominated the rock scene at the time, and the more tuneful numbers harked back to peak Tom Petty crossed with something that sounded like the Lemonheads in bigger musical boots. Although by accident rather than design, this would be an album that connected with a huge cross section of rock fans around the world.