ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
As usual, the past 12 months have seen the release of excellent albums from both veterans and newcomers, and also some surprises. Here are the 50 that Classic Rock writers deem the best.
50 DREAM THEATER Distance Over Time INSIDEOUT MUSIC
When nu prog’s poster boys convened in upstate New York for their fourteenth album, the keywords, according to guitarist John Petrucci were ’heavy’ and ’proggy’, perhaps a tacit response to the mixed reviews for DT’s 2016 album The Astonishing. From the moment the curtain rose on the pummelling Untethered Angel, this was Dream Theater returning to (relative) basics, walking a careful tightrope between brain and brawn. HY Killer track: Untethered Angel
49 TYGERS OF PAN TANG Ritual MIGHTY MUSIC
One of the NWOBHM’s most promising hopes, the Tygers had the potential to go the distance alongside Iron Maiden and Saxon, only for bad breaks to derail them. With founding guitarist Robb Weir still at the helm, Ritual dispels any notion of coasting on nostalgia, mainly matching vicious riffs with radio-friendly choruses, edging into heavier territory on the pummelling The Art Of Noise. RD Killer track: Sail On
48 MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST Revelation NUCLEAR BLAST
In 2012, Michael Schenker told this writer he’d entered a phase of his career centred on celebrating his legacy while seeking “to make something more out of it”. Accordingly, Revelation sees Schenker and bandmates from MSG’s classic 80s line-ups (including Gary Barden and Graham Bonnet) and Doogie White progressing from 2018’s Resurrection amid an abundance of sharp riffing, anthemic choruses and characteristically eloquent guitar solos. RD Killer track: Behind The Smile
47 THE HU The Gereg ELEVEN SEVEN MUSIC
A 2019 story if there ever was, Mongolian rock/folk hybrids The Hu harnessed the power of the internet (40 million+ YouTube views and counting) to build an international profile before they’d even left Central Asia, a testament to the power of a well-made video. The band’s power didn’t fade once the visuals were vanquished, and The Gereg was released as a regular, old-fashioned – and extremely lively – album. FL Killer track: Wolf Totem
46 MICHAEL MONROE One Man Gang SILVER LINING
With only the main man’s name on its cover, it’s easy to not realise how much of a team effort One Man Gang actually is. That’s possibly because co-writers/ guitarists Rich Jones and Steve Conte are so perfectly attuned to Monroe’s characteristic modus operandi of highenergy, good-time party rock. Live dynamo Monroe perpetually peaks, mirroring Hanoi Rocks’ finest moments, while stamping on the record a solo personality that’s all his own. IF Killer track: One Man Gang
45 THE RACONTEURS Help Us Stranger THIRD MAN
Jack White and Brendan Benson reconvened after much too long spent doing their own thing, and seemed hell-bent on making up for lost time by pulling out all the rock’n’roll stops on this, The Raconteurs’ third album. On Help Us Stranger the raw attack of AC/DC and the Stooges vied for prominence with Stonesy rock’n’roll, bluegrass folk, raucous blues and even hints of southern rock on a joyous comeback. JS Killer track: Bored And Razed
44 THE GLORIOUS SONS
A War On Everything
EARACHE With their third album, Canada’s the Glorious Sons reaffirmed their status as the greatest rock band the world continues to ignore. That situation is everyone else’s loss. A War On Everything adds Springsteen-y blue-collar heft to modern rock tunefulness and an unabashed pop sensibility. Something that’s easy enough to get down on paper, but much harder to perfect in real life. Glorious Sons have nailed it. Now it’s down to everyone else to do the right thing. DE Killer track: A War On Everything
43 BLACK FUTURES Never Not Nothing MUSIC FOR NATIONS
How to describe the racket created by this mysterious, hazmatsuited pair of studio mavericks? Something like: pre-apocalyptic synth-metal glam-punk that invites you to party like it’s 2099, preferably intoxicated by the mind-altering effects of a communal rock’n’rave happening? But whichever way you spin it, this is one earth-shaking blast of a debut album. JS Killer track: Love
42 PHIL CAMPBELL Old Lions Still Roar NUCLEAR BLAST
For those of us who believe Motörhead are for life, not just for Ace Of Spades, it’s been heartening to see longserving guitarist Phil Campbell thriving with the Bastard Sons since Lemmy’s passing. His debut solo album channels his ferocious guitar tone into bluesy hard rockers, framed with weightier, more intense tracks and acoustic interludes. Guests including Rob Halford and Alice Cooper bring their A-game. RD Killer track: Faith In Fire
41 NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE
Colorado
REPRISE
Undaunted by ‘Poncho’ Sampedro’s absence, Young merely brought in former Horse guitarist Nils Lofgren to plug the void for the first Crazy Horse album for seven years. Colorado bucked and roared like vintage Young, gloriously untamed on epic jam She Showed Me Love and uncompromisingly direct on Shut It Down. Personal themes of loss, love and regret were offset by wider preoccupations with ecological collapse and political dissent. RH Killer track: She Showed Me Love
40 OPETH In Cauda Venenum MODERBOLAGET
The Swedish metallersturned-prog overlords’ thirteenth album was also their first to be sung in their native tongue (it did also come with an English version). Tender and intimate in places, heavy and bombastic in others, In Cauda Venenum was the sound of a band at the height of their abilities doing exactly what they wanted – and thoroughly enjoying it. A rousing, luxurious affair, brilliantly executed. PG Killer track: Svekets Prins
39 JEFF LYNNE’S ELO
From Out Of Nowhere
COLUMBIA No matter how uncertain the times, you always know where you stand with ELO. The latest from Jeff Lynne’s one-man operation (except for Steve Jay’s percussion and a cameo from longtime pianist Richard Tandy) continued the stellar work of 2015 comeback Alone In The Universe, delivering a blend of heart-stopping chord changes and spacey concerto pop, perfectly illustrated by the sublime title track. RH Killer track: From Out Of Nowhere
37 KRIS BARRAS BAND
Light It Up MASCOT
Former cage-fighter, blues guitar-slinger… Legit rockstar? After Light It Up it was easy to reply in the affirmative. Barras’s chops, tasty solos and Bon Jovi-rivalling vocals were turbocharged by infectious choruses, southern crunch, fusion-y flourishes and more. No bullshit, no fannying around, just an album full of belting rock songs. PG Killer track: Counterfeit People
36 TYLER BRYANT & THE SHAKEDOWN
Truth And Lies
SNAKEFARM
He’s the prodigious blues kid from Texas who, in the company of the excellent Shakedown, grew into one of rock’s biggest contenders. Together they put themselves on the map by opening for pretty much every touring A-lister alive (AC/DC, GN’R etc etc), and on second album Truth And Lies they proved their songwriting weight: brooding, grungy flavours of Soundgarden mixed with rootsy rawness and seductive blues-rock grooves – plus enough swagger to make Keith Richards blush, and their tenderest moments yet. PG Killer track: Out There
35 STARCRAWLER
Devour You ROUGH TRADE
Founded and fronted by confrontational provocateur Arrow de Wilde, LA’s latest cult retro-rock revisionists dig deep into their home city’s sleazy, scuzzy, hard-partying history on this deliciously decadent second album. With nods to Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne, Courtney Love, Iggy Pop and other legends, agreeably sloppy guitar-chuggers like Bet My Brains and No More Pennies find that sweet spot between stoned boho cool and snarly glam-punk attitude. SD Killer track: Hollywood Ending
34
IGGY POP
Free
LOMA VISTA/CAROLINE
Now that pretty much everyone finally recognises ‘the world’s forgotten boy’, following his evereventful half-century seduction of the mainstream (from Stooges infamy through Berlin-born Bowie collaborations to universally respected alt.rock elder statesman status), he’s changed tack. Free is the album that one suspects Iggy’s been quietly percolating across his last few decades of crowd-pleasingly predictable selfimmolation. Trumpet-led, Miles-informed atmospherics; stripped, confessional poetics; echoes of Post Pop Depression. Free’s brink-dwelling lounge-jazz is Iggy’s Blackstar: not epitaph, but fearless expression of ultimate liberation. IF Killer track: James Bond
33
DUFF MCKAGAN
Tenderness
UNIVERSAL
Shot through with a deep humanity and tattooed-sleeve-wearing social conscience, McKagan’s foray into ethereal Americana and country-tinged ambience blindsided many critics in both its genre positioning and sheer accomplishment. A rich seam of plaintive melancholy is bolstered by McKagan’s rusty falsetto which is as rootsy as much of the instrumentation, and any polish on it is channelled directly into the songcraft: pinpoint-perfect in its execution and restraint. Elevated further by a crack team of backing musicians (assembled by collaborator Shooter Jennings), it’s a whole heap of maturity and class. TB Killer track: Tenderness
32
STEVE HACKETT
At The Edge Of Light
INSIDE OUT
The former Genesis guitarist capped a highly productive decade in dazzling style with this refined and esoteric record, which also became a UK Top 30 hit. Following on from the equally eclectic The Night Siren and Beyond The Shrouded Horizon, his twenty-sixth solo album is a panoramic, proggy musical voyage, with the lush symphonic rock he does so well (Beast Of Our Time) but also twanging, harmony-rich 60s pop (Hungry Years) and even blues/ gospel (Underground Railroad). Hackett’s coruscating guitar playing and inspired vocals are central to the rich, orchestral sound palette. His star has rarely shone so brightly. GM Killer track: Those Golden Wings
31 WHITESNAKE
Flesh and Blood FRONTIERS
Thirteen proved to be a lucky number for David Coverdale’s perennially priapic gentleman rockers, cracking the UK Top 10 for the first time in more than a decade with their thirteenth studio album. On hard-riffing, trouser-bulging, guiltypleasure anthems like Shut Up & Kiss Me and Trouble Is Your Middle Name, Coverdale and new guitarist Joel Hoekstra pay selfconsciously retro homage to Whitesnake’s 1980s glam-metal playboy heyday. SD Killer track: Hey You… You Make Me Rock
30 STURGILL SIMPSON
Sound & Fury ELEKTRA
Nashville’s most eclectic talent outdid himself on this dazzling fourth album, for which Simpson cast off the countryisms of 2016’s Grammy-winning A Sailor’s Guide To Earth in favour of heavy psychedelia and ripsnorting jams. Issued in tandem with Netflix’s dystopian anime film of the same name, Sound & Fury revealed him to be a post-Sabbath rocker of genuine might, heading up a fearsome four-piece band. RH Killer track: Fastest Horse In Town
29 JIM JONES AND THE RIGHTEOUS MIND
CollectiV
MASONIC
The second album from Jones’s swamp-rocking Righteous Mind found the ever-reliable ex-Thee Hypnotics, Black Moses and Jim Jones Revue frontman cherry-picking from his past to deliver a firestorm of psyched-up, garageborn, groove-driven, sexed-up, snakehandling, gospel-diabolique, rock’n’rollicking fuckabilly mayhem. With JJATRM’s core quintet augmented by occasional Primal Scream guitarist ‘Little’ Barrie Cadogan, soul siren Sister Cookie, operatic Slovenian Vesna Potrasin and (on Attack Of The Killer Brainz) ex-Hypnotics Ray Hanson and Phil Smith, CollectiV’s seething cauldron of salacious mayhem rocks majestically. IF Killer track: Sex Robot
28 WHISKEY MYERS
Whiskey Myers SNAKEFARM
The gospel according to Whiskey Myers is distilled to its finest proof yet on this Texas band’s fifth album, a magnificent compendium of southern rock’n’roll storytelling. ‘I was raised by wolves in the woods,’ Cody Cannon howls on one of many kick-ass songs which articulate the authentic cry of the rural American heartland. ‘I need a bible, a gun and gasoline,’ he declares. Holy smoke! DS Killer track: Bury My Bones
27 VOLBEAT
Rewind, Replay, Rebound
VERTIGO
2019 has been the year of Peaky Blinders, something Volbeat astutely plugged into with their seventh album. From the kids in baker-boy caps on its cover to the PB-referencing Cheapside Sloggers, Rewind, Replay, Rebound crackled with outlaw
swagger. But this was more than just razorwielding aggro; a sweet air of nostalgia shrouded When We Were Kids, mainman (and new father) Michael Poulsen’s affecting view of lost childhood. With Poulsen dialling back his divisive James Hetfield-goes-rockabilly croon, it was Volbeat’s finest collection of songs yet. DE Killer track: When We Were Kids
26 NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS
Ghosteen
GHOSTEEN
Released with almost no advance fanfare, Nick Cave’s stunning new double album proved to be an ambitious, hallucinatory, mesmerising avant-rock symphony rooted in grief for his late teenage son Arthur. Shimmering ambient laments like Sun Forest and Waiting For You combine spare, radiant, chamber-orchestra arrangements with stream-of-consciousness monologues full of dreamlike imagery and recurring poetic motifs. The overall effect is achingly beautiful, an unimaginably awful family tragedy transformed into something magical, cathartic and strangely uplifting. SD Killer track: Ghosteen Speaks
25 SLIPKNOT
We Are Not Your Kind
ROADRUNNER
“This album is a masterpiece,” stated Slipknot’s Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan – and dared the rock press to deny it. We couldn’t. On standouts like Unsainted and the climactic finale Solway Firth,the masked Iowans’ fury was undimmed but their range was extended, and when We Are Not Your Kind hit US and UK No.1 over the summer its unholy presence felt like a glorious pustule on the airbrushed face of modern pop. HY Killer track: Unsainted
24 ROYAL REPUBLIC
Club Majesty NUCLEAR BLAST
Upping the ante of 2016’s Weekend Man, the Swedes’ fourth album was easily one of the sparkliest, most joyful releases of 2019. A glimmering glitter-ball of pitch-perfect disco rock, Club Majesty experty blends precision camp, irresistible riffs and goodenough-to-eat tunes. At Download festival – in a field of muddy metalheads – they mixed all this with a cover of Metallica’s Battery, while dressed in matching sparkly jackets and the shiniest of shoes. Now that takes balls. PG
Killer track: Anna-Leigh
23 THE CLAYPOOL LENNON DELIRIUM
South Of Reality
ATOS
It’s impossible to talk about the Claypool Lennon Delirium without bringing John ‘father of Sean’ Lennon into the equation, so we’ll tackle the elephant in the room up front: this album is kinda Beatle-ish. It’s not moptop Beatles, and it’s not sappy stuff Beatles. It’s weird Beatles, it’s dark Beatles, it’s experimental Beatles, and Sean Lennon and Primus’s Les Claypool have come up with a minor psychedelic classic. FL Killer track: Blood And Rockets
22 ALTER BRIDGE
Walk The Sky NAPALM
Majestic, melodic, menacing, metallic. The sixth album by the Florida quartet is a monster in all departments. With two formidable singer-songwriter-guitarists – Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti – now in their pomp, songs such as Wouldn’t You Rather and Native Son combine hardcore metal guitar sounds and beats with soaring vocal harmonies and profound lyrics. ‘If I die tonight…will I have lived in vain?’ they ask on Clear Horizon. Not with an album like this thy won’t.
Kennedy and Tremonti might have had solo projects on the go, but judging by Walk The Sky we can’t see them abandoning their day job any time soon. DS Killer track: Dying Light
21 AIRBOURNE
Boneshaker SPINEFARM
The bludgeoning sledgehammer of a PR line for the Aussies’ fifth album – “This is a fucking rock’n’roll record” – wasn’t kidding. Recorded with Rival Sons producer Dave Cobb, it’s a flaming, stripped-to-the-bone blast of sweat, sex and danger. Their love for AC/DC has long been one of the most widely acknowledged things in rock’n’roll, but here Airbourne tip their hat to the Bon Scott days with more guts and gall than ever. And it’s all over in 30 breakneck minutes. You’ll make up your own mind, but it’s difficult to see how any lover of balls-to-the-wall rock’n’roll wouldn’t get a kick out of this. PG Killer track: Sex To Go
20 DIAMOND HEAD
The Coffin Train
SILVER LINING MUSIC
Thirty-nine years since Diamond Head’s debut album defined them as one of the great NWOBHM bands (and provided Lars Ulrich with much of the blueprint for the fledgling Metallica), The Coffin Train delivered heaviness and depth in equal measure. With guitarist and founding member Brian Tatler still a genius of riffs, and singer Rasmus Bom Andersen’s range and tone evoking Chris Cornell, there is earthshaking power in The Messenger, and sombre beauty in Until We Burn. From first track to last, it’s epic stuff. PE Killer track: The Messenger
19
TOOL
Fear Inoculum
MUSIC FOR NATIONS
Arriving almost 5,000 days on from previous album 10,000 Days, Tool’s fifth album proper required nearly as much patience to digest as it did to anticipate. Conspicuously lacking any up-tempo punchy tracks previously scattered through their records, its slow-burn, impossibly dense spider’s web of mutating time signatures, polyrhythms and staccato riffs rewarded concentration levels above your typical 21st-century base line. More spacious in tone and delivery than usual, yet amply stuffed with A-grade hooks and melodies, there’s enough to chew on for another few thousand days at least. TB Killer track: Descending
18 THE ALLMAN BETTS BAND
Down To The River BMG
The pre-eminent southern rock dynasty does more than simply renew itself with the debut album by Devon and Duane, the sons of Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts respectively, it grows vigorous new branches and bears sumptuous fresh fruit. Both the bandleaders have fine singing voices, and the title track is a stunningly soulful tune in a Robert Cray vein. But it’s the duo’s long, free-flowing guitar exchanges, rising and falling like ocean waves, that truly set band and album apart. Glorious. DS Killer track: Autumn Breeze
17
THE DEFIANTS
Zokusho
FRONTIERS
If ever a band was aptly named, it’s this one. Led by survivors from the glory days of hair metal – current and former members of Danger Danger – The Defiants roll like it’s 1989 on what is indisputably the best melodic rock album of 2019 (see Dave Ling’s AOR Top 5 for confirmation). Zokusho (Japanese for ‘sequel’) is all about big tunes, with Hollywood In Headlights a classic all-American anthem. And the finale, Drink Up!, takes ‘no brainer’ to a whole new level. PE Killer track: Hollywood In Headlights
16 THE MAGPIE SALUTE
High Water II PROVOGUE
If the rumours prove to be true (Ed's note: they are, see p14), and warring brothers Chris and Rich Robinson do reunite The Black Crowes in 2020, the money going into Rich’s bank account might be better, but it would be heavy going for the guitarist after three bullshitfree years leading The Magpie Salute. What is also evident, in High Water II, is that this band, featuring other ex-Crowes and soulful singer John Hogg, are now reaching a peak, as illustrated by the vintage-Stones groove in Gimme Something. If hell freezes over, much will be lost. PE Killer track: Gimme Something
15
STATUS QUO
Backbone
EARMUSIC/EDEL
Francis Rossi trailered Backbone with his awareness that a new Quo album without the late Rick Parfitt “had to be seriously good”. Rising to the occasion, Quo exceeded expectations with Backbone, a feelgood, hook-laden collection, with guitars set the right side of overdrive and contributions from Rossi’s vintage-era songwriting partner Bob Young. Setting aside nostalgia and sentiment, Backbone is more consistent and characteristically Quo-like than the majority of their 90s albums and the fag-end of the post-Frantic Four period. Overall a disarmingly enjoyable addition to their catalogue. RD Killer track: Liberty Lane
14 BETH HART
War In My Mind
MASCOT/PROVOGUE
Beth Hart is the songwriter who just keeps on giving. Her womanly despatches from the emotional battle zone just get
stronger and more soulful with every album, and her latest, War In My Mind, drills deep into the core of her renegade California spirit and art. ‘I’ll be the sugar rush in your veins,’ she sings on Bad Woman Blues, and is as good as her word on a succession of baroque testimonials and dark, sweeping piano ballads. The lyrics on I Need A Hero (‘Here comes another storm, seems like it’s always raining/Mostly in my head under the sheets/It’s where I’m always hiding from my best intentions’) explode like landmines. Incredible. DS Killer track: Bad Woman Blues
13 BEAUX GRIS GRIS & THE APOCALYPSE
Love & Murder
GROW VISION MUSIC
Although they are best-known for their partnership in Well Hung Heart, Greta Valenti and Robin Davey’s bluesy bit on the side Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse felt like the main event this year. The tugof-war between the American’s bad-girl holler and the Brit’s scholarly guitar stylings rubbed up sparks, and you suspect that Jagger/Richards would be happy to claim Don’t Let The Bastards Drag You Down as their own. But Love & Murder got pleasingly weird, too: try the twisted gypsy-jazz of Cyclone, a song as apocalyptic as the times in which it was born. HY Killer Track: Don’t Let The Bastards Drag You Down
12 THE BLACK KEYS
Let's Rock
EASY EYE SOUND/NONESUCH
It’s likely that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s commercial peak is behind them. But Let’s Rock spoke of a glorified garage band gleefully returning to first principles, as the Ohio duo broke with the wafty soundscapes of 2014’s Turn Blue, and instead threw their arms around the old ways of fuzz-box blues and raggedarsed, harmony-stacked soul. It felt like a thrilling fresh start – and the stadium league be damned. HY Killer Track: Eagle Birds
11 TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND
Signs
FANTASY
The southern rootsrock band led by Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks responded to the current political turmoil and a string of personal losses with an album of rare brilliance. ‘There’s poison in the well…’ Tedeschi sings in Shame, a threshing riff which echoes the Allmans’ Whipping Post. TTB’s keyboard player Kofi Burbridge died on the day Signs was released, and tracks such as The Ending and When Will I Begin are freighted with a deep, elegiac resonance. DS Killer track: Shame
10
BIG BIG TRAIN
Grand Tour
ENGLISH ELECTRIC
Big Big Train are the most unlikely band to notch up a Top 40 album in 2019: a British prog group whose roots stretch back to the late 80s, playing a strain of literate, luxurious music that was last in fashion when Peter Gabriel was still a member of Genesis. But their magisterial twelfth album proved that there’s still a place in the modern world for old-fashioned craft and intelligence.
Where their more recent albums were enveloped in the mists and mythology of England, Grand Tour looked further afield: the title referred to the physical and cultural trans-European journeys taken by moneyed 19th-century youths, and a sense of forward motion imbued such musically rich tracks as Alive and Voyager, the latter inspired by the endless journey of the famed space probe of the same name. For all that, though, the biggest journey of all belonged to Big Big Train themselves. DE Killer track: Alive
9 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Western Stars COLUMBIA
Like a living Mount Rushmore statue, Bruce Springsteen carves himself into the rugged American landscape on this cinematic nineteenth album. Ambitiously expanding his musical vocabulary as he turns 70, The Boss takes a detour from his native New Jersey to the mythic American West of one-horse towns, rhinestone cowboys, high-plains drifters and lonesome desert highways. The widescreen orchestral roots-rock arrangements on elegiac tracks like Tucson Train and There Goes My Miracle pay knowing tribute to the classic sumptuous analogue country-pop masters like Jimmy Webb, Glen Campbell and Harry Nilsson. A chart-topper in Britain and across the globe, Western Stars is vintage autumnal Bruce. SD Killer track: There Goes My Miracle
8
STRAY CATS
40
SURFDOG
Having gone a quarter of a century without releasing a studio album, the reunited New York rockabilly trio hit middle-age without a pinch of flab or even a cursory nod to fashion. In uncertain times, it felt reassuring to be led into Brian Setzer, Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom’s largely fictitious hinterland of jukeboxes and bobbysoxers, as 40’s full-pelt track-listing took off like a souped-up Ford T-Bird.
This was a young man’s music – from the skittering Gretsch guitar licks to the
tales of blonde chicks throwing down in the diner parking lot – and by rights it should have sounded ridiculous in the hands of these old stagers. But such was the Cats’ exuberance – and undimmed virtuosity – that moments like the screeching Cat Fight (Over A Dog Like Me) and Rock It Off spoke of quiffs, lips, fists and crotches, not enlarged prostates. Long may they prowl. HY Killer track: Cat Fight (Over A Dog Like Me)
7
GARY CLARK JR
This Land
WARNER BROS
The past few years haven’t been short of Trump-centric protest songs, but few have sounded as incendiary as the title track of Gary Clark Jr’s fifth album. The breathtaking blast of rage found the shapeshifting Texan drawing inspiration from the fire and fury of modern hip-hop artists such as Kendrick Lamar, and painting a seething picture of what it’s like to be AfricanAmerican in the midst of an unspoken cultural civil war: ‘Fuck you, I’m America’s son, this is where I come from.’ The rest of This Land might not be as incendiary, but it was no less revolutionary – the Prince homage Pearl Cadillac and Got To Get Into Something’s whooping garage rock were the sound of a man busting open his horizons and leaving the old-school blues rock to the white guys in shiny suits. DE Killer track: This Land
6 RAMMSTEIN
Untitled
SPINFARM
2019 was the year in which Rammstein put on perhaps the most spectacular outdoor show the rock world has ever seen. But while most bands carving such a fiery path through Europe’s stadiums would be relying almost entirely on their back catalogue, Rammstein’s latest album was front and centre. Nobody really seemed to know if it was untitled or self-titled, but it didn’t seem to matter, because it was peak Rammstein.
A decade on from Liebe Ist Für Alle Da, it was business as usual – and what business. Deutschland hammered like AC/DC on steroids, and was accompanied by a controversial video that brought some of German history’s bleakest moments to harrowing life, while Ausländer thumped like a Eurovision banger and was accompanied by a controversial video that featured plenty of tits. Never before was such high-concept art presented with such glorious, juvenile glee. FL Killer track: Was Ich Liebe
5
THE WHO
Who
POLYDOR
The Who’s first album in 13 years gives every indication that it marks the last time Pete Townshend will address the band’s constituency. Despite the personal nature of his lyrics, Townshend soundtracks lives, and Who finds My Generation’s central protagonist a half-century older, yet still raging. Opening statement All This Music Will Fade tempers righteous fury with reluctant resignation. Roger Daltrey remains Townshend’s perfect mouthpiece, still bringing bullish pugnaciousness to existential angst. You approach Rockin’ In Rage expecting swagger, but find Townshend feeling ‘like a leper… too old to fight’. Who works as a two-way mirror, reflecting Townshend’s specific situation (a spokesman for his generation facing feelings of irrelevance and abandonment) and that of the ageing ‘kids’ (for whom he’s always spoken), no longer simply ‘alright’, but ‘grey’ and ‘afraid’. Offering way more than Who-by-numbers, Who is relevant, honest and essential. IF Killer track: All This Music Will Fade
4
RIVAL SONS
Feral Roots
ATLANTIC
Moving quickly past the teeth-grindingly disturbing (if captivating) artwork – the little creatures of the forest, weaned on the lactations of an apparently rabid dog – Rival Sons’ sixth full-length album ups the ante on previous accomplishments with a widescreen range of bluesy balladry and swinging riffs. Titled after the band’s literal roots-ward move (straight out of the Led Zep III Bron-Yr-Aur playbook) to pastoral Tennessee, this ruralism informs much of the album, not least the astonishing run of five tracks at its core. From Look Away through to Imperial Joy, rarely has such a rich quintet nestled so comfortably together: the open-tuned acoustic start of the former culminating in the euphoric gospel of the latter. And while it’s tempting to view the whole as a marker to the new kids in town (you know who), resist, and savour. TB Killer track: Feral Roots
3 BLACK STAR RIDERS
Another State Of Grace
NUCLEAR BLAST
“We wanted to make a big, anthemicsounding record,” said frontman Ricky Warwick. “High-energy rock’n’roll.” Another State Of Grace has all of that and more.
For their fourth album, Black Star Riders had two new members making their debut with the band, guitarist Christian Martucci and drummer Chad Szeliga, and a new producer, Jay Ruston, who had mixed two previous BSR albums. While some songs, notably Tonight The Moonlight Let Me Down, have echoes of Thin Lizzy – the band from which Black Star Riders were born, and in which guitarist Scott Gorham starred in their glory days – there are new sounds and ideas on this album: a flavour of Americana in What Will It Take?, a powerful protest song in Why Do You Love Your Guns?. As Warwick put it: “The Lizzy connection will always be there, but this band stands on its own.” PE Killer track: Why Do You Love Your Guns?
2 THE DARKNESS
Easter Is Cancelled
COOKING VINYL
The Darkness don’t make bad albums, but for most of the noughties their releases haven’t quite equalled the sum of their spandex-clad parts. Easter Is Cancelled is different. It’s an album that starts off good and gets better, an album of such consistency that the band are playing the whole thing live on tour. Such an approach is normally a recipe for disgruntlement, but this record is different. Nine months in the making, it’s a many-headed beast of a collection, consuming a vast swathe of rock’n’roll’s glorious past – Queen, AC/DC, Boston, the rest – and spitting it out in a denim ’n’ leather, glitter-dusted smorgasbord of thumping riffs and whip-smart songwriting nous. From the effervescent glee of Heart Explodes to the peculiar vaudeville of Deck Chair and the jubilant Live ’Til I Die, it’s funny, it’s exuberant and it’s brilliantly performed. Those who struggle with Justin Hawkins’s voice aren’t going to be swayed by Easter Is Cancelled, but for those who truly love the band it’s a reminder of how buoyant rock’n’roll can be in The Darkness’s hands. And it’s not far off being the best thing they’ve ever done. FL Killer track: Live ’Til I Die
1 WILDHEARTS THE
Renaissance Men
GRAPHITE
The Wildhearts’ comeback album is not just impossibly good, by rights it should have been impossible. In reviving a sound that they first nailed nearly 30 years ago, Ginger, CJ, Ritch and Danny managed to defy nature’s laws, and certainly musical ones. The old rules of rock’n’roll – or at least the vital, punk-infused variety The Wildhearts traded in – dictated that middle-aged men couldn’t continue to make young persons’ music without making embarrassing arses of themselves, and if they had any dignity they should shuffle off into MOR irrelevance.
Gaps between albums of a decade don’t usually help, and nor, in theory, does rehiring your old bass player despite the fact that he’s recently had a leg amputated. Sentiment is all very well and admirable, but it rarely makes for the kind of fired-up, splenetic, wasp-up-your-trouser-leg rock racket The Wildhearts are known for. And at their age they should know better. But as rock’n’roll itself becomes an art form old enough to claim its free bus pass, there are an increasing number of artists bucking the old trends and raging as hard as ever against the dying of the light. Indeed there’s a very seductive theory that the people who manage to stay relevant into their dotage – your Dylans, Youngs, Wellers even – tend to be the curmudgeonly old fuckers who seem to still have some eternal itch to scratch. Ginger Wildheart could fit into that mould pretty snugly, even if he’d doubtless rankle at any attempt to rope him into a gang.
But there’s definitely something more than just one man’s demons firing up Renaissance Men.
The life-affirming qualities of this record must have something to do with restoring a line-up that imbued this band with more confidence and vitality than they’ve shown on record for years. We can’t really call it a comeback, given the amount of temporary re-formations and one-off gigs The Wildhearts have gone through, but the reconvening of the nearest this band gets to a classic line-up – Ginger, CJ, Danny and Ritch – seemed to rekindle a spark in the studio which hadn’t burned this brightly since the mid-90s.
They clearly felt it too. The theme-setting title track may be the third in sequence on this album, but there’s no doubt it sums up the mood in the band. ‘You can’t keep a good band down,’ they sing on the title track. ‘We’re gonna make you sing if anyone can, we’ll rock you like a boomerang.’
As that suggests, crucially, the mixture of pithy humour and prickly lyrics we always loved them for is really fizzing on this album, matched by some breathless playing. The overwhelming energy assault of My Kinda Movie – particularly in Ritch’s relentlessly intense drumming and a superb twanging guitar riff – offsets a lyric full of great lines: ‘If this was on video I’d get my money back/Pirate this on VHS and spend the rest on crack,’ Ginger sneers, in another telling reference to the history of this star-crossed foot-shooter of a band. For the most part, though, it’s an unflinchingly heartfelt set of songs, with not a single word minced or muted. The musings on racism and homophobia firing My Side Of The Bed might be older and wiser, but it’s full of uncompromising lines such as ‘Don’t take the easy thoroughfare, you know that it’s full of cunts down there.’ Meanwhile, the Pistols-y thunder of Diagnosis is a thrillingly lifeaffirming riposte to the dose-now-ask-questionslater approach to mental health Ginger targets in the lyrics. One of the strongest songs of all is the CJ-written Little Flower, a robustly romantic singalong that could have graced any hard rock album of the past 40 years.
All of which made this a runaway winner of Clasic Rock’s 2019 Album Of The Year Poll. Vive la renaissance! JS Killer track: The Renaissance Men