Aside from a brief spell in the early 80s when Stray Cats, The Jets and The Polecats managed to break into the UK top forty singles chart, rockabilly has never truly been in fashion. That said, it’s never been out of fashion, either; over the decades, it’s retro and surprisingly enduring style has caught the ears of many, often providing a genuine alternative to the relative mainstream of punk. Rockabilly’s undying spirit has rarely been captured in better form than on The Long Tall Texans’ 2014 release ‘The Devil Made Us Do It‘ – a record that showed how a band three decades into a career could still sound vibrant and how the attitudes of rockabilly had such potential to cross into punk audiences. When done well, rockabilly can be thrilling; when missing the mark, it can sound too predictable to the point of tiredness, but whatever the outcome, the constituent elements are often the same: hefty rattling basslines; walking grooves from the reverbed guitars and a flippant and sometimes edgy voice.
MORAG TONG – Through Clouded Time EP
Having worked hard at creating meaty and reverbed sludge metal perfection on stages across the south of England and beyond, London’s Morag Tong entered the studio to lay down a few tracks at the tail end of 2015. The resultant EP, ‘Through Clouded Time’, released at the beginning of the new year, presents four numbers of sheer weightiness that not only act as a great snapshot of Morag Tong’s purer musical intents, but also instantly asserts itself as an underground sludge classic.
HELLO BEAR – I Don’t Know…It’s Fun Though, Isn’t It? EP
With several releases behind them, by the summer of 2016 Hello Bear had not only attracted a cult following, but also received positive press from the BBC. Throughout their career, the band’s pop/rock stylings have often been sent off with ridiculous, pointless song titles – the kind that could rival Fall Out Boy and make it almost impossible to remember which tracks are which. From the outside looking in, it would be so easy to accuse Hello Bear of just trying that bit too hard. However, the reality is somewhat different. Ignoring the fluff and the sub-teenage surrealism, their 2016 EP ‘I Don’t Know…It’s Fun Though, Isn’t It?’ presents some of the best guitar pop/power pop to emerge from the UK since Farrah issued their fourth (self-titled) album in 2010.
THUNDERMOTHER – Road Fever
Sex should never be an issue when it comes to musical abilities. As Vixen’s Share Pedersen once put it many years ago: “[being a good musician] has nothing to do with whether you have a dick – that’s not what you play your instrument with!”, but even so, from The Runaways in the 70s, Girlschool, Femme Fatale and Vixen in the 80s, not to mention countless others throughout the 90s and beyond, the all-female band seems to have (over)excited many a rock fan – and not necessarily for the right reasons.
Since their formation in 2010, Thundermother – five denim clad Swedes armed with ample amplification and an obsession with AC/DC – showed themselves to be truly committed to their chosen style. They quickly attracted a cult audience across Europe and in the lead up to their third full length LP ‘Road Fever’ worked really hard to expand their audiences on the live circuit, a place where their old style rock is (understandably) at its best.
GRAHAM BONNET BAND – The Book
Graham Bonnet is one of the UK’s hardest working rock vocalists. In the past, he’s fronted big name bands, been a voice for hire for several widdly guitarists and even found time in between for a hit and miss solo career. When on good form, Bonnet can be terrific (as evidenced on Rainbow’s classic ‘Down To Earth and his own ‘Line Up); when he misses the mark, he has the ability to do so in a devastating way (the Blackthorn debut is pretty nasty, and somehow his solo LP ‘No Bad Habits’ from 1978 ended up being one of the worst albums ever recorded). Despite these inconsistencies, the Skegness born singer has reached legendary status.