Listen: Lions, Love (…and Lies): A Real Gone Sampler 2024

2024 was a great year. Real Gone celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. It was the website’s most successful year to date. We picked up a lot of new supporters and covered a wealth of new music. Our detailed reviews continued to be popular with the readers, and our Singles Bar really caught the attention of those looking for a quicker fix of new music.

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The Real Gone End of Year Round-Up 2024

 

It’s been another great year at Real Gone. We’ve reviewed countless albums and EPs. We’ve covered a record number of gigs (with Simple Minds and Deacon Blue being particular standouts), and gained support from a wealth of new labels and PR teams. It’s also been the first full year online for our popular Singles Bar – allowing us to take a look at various individual tracks and submissions – which has provided a massive extra stream of traffic.

It’s been a superb twelve months for music, and it’s time to shine a light on the many talents we feel have helped to make our site interesting. We’ve featured a wealth of new stuff. As usual, rock has provided the backbone of Real Gone’s musical interests, but we’ve really gone all out to try and promote some of the most interesting things from other genres, which has made picking favourites a little harder this year.

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Watch: The Rattlebacks return with new video ‘Waste’

Those who’ve been keeping a close eye on Brighton’s The Rattlebacks throughout 2024 will have witnessed a band seemingly going from strength to strength. Each of the singles released from their forthcoming album has found the band sounding much more confident than before. Blending elements of melodic hard rock and a pinch of grunginess, the band’s best songs have conveyed a broad sound, and with ‘Dementia Lounge’ especially, The Rattlebacks’ ability to combine absolutely killer late 80s/early 90s riffs with a vocal that celebrates a classic rock approach reached its peak.

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THE RATTLEBACKS – Sidewinder

Since forming in 2021, Brighton band The Rattlebacks have worked incredibly hard to mark their place within the rock underground. Their debut EP ‘Kink’ shared a sound that mixed classic hard rock riffs with a pinch of melodic metal and grunginess to create something very broad but appealing. The release gained enthusiastic press from a few independent outlets, but as good as it was, it left the feeling that, in time, the band would unleash something much stronger. Continue reading