Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the more interesting individual tracks that have landed in our inbox over the past few weeks. Following the festive selection, this collection of tracks returns to “regular programming”, with a slab of garage rock, a pleasingly subtle work from an Irish singer songwriter, a previous release given a huge remix, a perfect pop punk track, and more besides. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy!
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At the end of 2023, House of Hosts’ debut single ‘Oblivion’ introduced a band who clearly knew their way around a riff. Right from the off, it showcased a band who could potentially crush their audience with relative ease. A few of the vocals were perhaps a little too gruff to fit with the alternative metal backdrop, but it presented something with a great potential. Over the course of a couple more singles, the rough edges had been ironed out a little, but by often sharing a cleaner vocal over a heavy sound, this Welsh band marked themselves out as a rising talent and an act that might build a committed following rather quickly.
In 2022, electronic musician John Andrew Paris – aka Paris Music Corp. – released his self-titled album. Marking a return to recording after a five year hiatus, the fourteen track record was pleasingly varied, taking in beat-heavy, almost danceable works (‘Whiteout’) to artier sounding tracks adorned with great bass sounds (the Mick Karn influenced ‘Light Speed’ and the vaguely shoegaze like ‘Witch Harvest’), to pure ambient fare (‘New Blue Norther’, ‘The Original Orb’). It may have drawn from a lot of different sources, but it was to the musician’s credit that it never lacked direction. By then presenting his audience with a twelve minute epic in 2023 (the soundtrack for ‘Spectral Wind’), it was clear that Paris had so many more ideas up his sleeve and so much more to give.
Love it or hate it, Christmas music is big business – especially in the US, where it seems that almost every great artist has recorded something festive for posterity. Apparently, if you’re a country artist, recording a Christmas album is the law. The amount of time and money invested in festive tunes is huge, and that becomes rather bewildering when you consider that the music basically has a shelf life of four or five weeks a year.
Blending elements of groove metal and melodic hardcore, with influences from Machine Head and Sevendust, Irish band Asylum Road delivered some absolutely massive riffs on their brilliant EP ‘The Fear’ in 2024. A couple of the vocals might have split opinion with their genuinely abrasive approach, but from a musical standpoint – and looking at the material in terms of tightly played, classic metal, without sounding at all dated – the material was first rate.