THE ULTIMATE PLAYLIST OF 2022
Need a bunch of top tunes to wrap your ears around? Cue this CR-selected lot up on your preferred mode of music delivery and listen to some of the best new tracks released this year.
THE VETERANS Choons from the A-list. DEF LEPPARD
Take What You Want
Leppard threw everything at Diamond Star Halos, and nowhere is that more apparent than on this scorching opening track. A resounding banger with substance and swishiness.
SLASH FT MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS
The River Is Rising
Four albums into a blissful marriage with Myles and co, Slash seemingly dug into his Appetite-era box of tricks for this beauty. Heavy and dirty and recorded hot off the studio floor, it’s one of their rawest and most effective moments yet.
ZZ TOP
Blue Jean Blues
There are plenty of rip-roaring knees-ups on Raw, but it’s on this smooth, supremely cool 12-bar ballad that Billy Gibbons unlocks a fresh reservoir of soul – the sort he’s always had inside, now realised on an oft-overlooked ZZ gem.
OZZY OSBOURNE
One Of Those Days
Eric Clapton joins the Prince Of Darkness on this moody, majestic highlight from Patient No. 9, all beefy velvet, existential crises, and a Zeppelin-esque belter of a chorus. Thought Ozzy’s best days were well behind him? You were wrong.
SCORPIONS
Rock Believer
Only Scorpions make ’em like this any more, it seems. From the twin-lead guitar screams of the intro to the tender verse vocals and a big, feelgood chorus, it’s exactly what you want from a love letter to the power of rock’n’roll.
EDDIE VEDDER
Long Way
The Pearl Jam singer is on stellar form on this, the first and best single from his 2022 solo album Earthling. A blissedout kaleidoscope of warm Americana, acoustic strumming and stunning electric solos. Oh, and sweet, sweet harmonies.
THE BLACK KEYS
Wild Child
You can feel the fun Messrs Auerbach and Carney (hopefully) had making this one; a funky, 70s-infused, gigantic bluesrock boogie. Equal parts groove, sass and swagger, it restores the Keys to the catchiness levels of classics like Lonely Boy.
BILLY IDOL
The Cage
The title track of Billy’s latest EP, with guitarist Steve Stevens on scorching form and Idol sounding unfazed by the passage of time, is the sort of heartfelt banger that plenty in his shoes would’ve given up striving for. Thank god he hasn’t.
THE HEAVY STUFF
Hard rockers and big fucking riffs.
ALTER BRIDGE
This Is War
Myles Kennedy’s mad-monk backing vocals are sinister, but when guitarist Mark Tremonti’s brutal brick-wall chug enters at the half-minute, Alter Bridge’s Pawns & Kings opener makes an actual military conflict sound like wind chimes.
HALESTORM
The Steeple
Lzzy Hale cites the writing of this twistyriffed anthem as her impetus for vacating the couch post-covid, and you don’t need a poetry degree to feel her fiery rebirth (‘It stopped raining in my head today, I finally feel like myself again/Redemption's here at last’).
KRIS BARRAS BAND
These Voices
The hands that used to deal out jabs on the Mixed Martial Arts circuit have never been more brutal than on the intro riff of this track – “It’s always a classic headbanging moment of the set,” Barras says – before he cleanses our palate with a sunburst chorus that washes away “that niggling voice in your head”.
DOROTHY
A Beautiful Life
Heavy in every sense, the opener of the band’s Gifts From The Holy Ghost album finds Dorothy Martin lamenting the “suicide and near-death experiences” of lost souls dear to her. If you’re stepping towards the light, the thrilling pay-off ‘Don’t let the demons get you down!’ will pull you back.
MONSTER TRUCK
Golden Woman
You’d never guess that Jon Harvey wrote the most pulverising riff from the Truck’s Warriors album on his son’s toy guitar. And it’s similarly an eye-opener to learn that beneath the sonic napalm, this is the purest of love songs (the titular golden woman is the frontman’s partner Simara).
CLUTCH
Slaughter Beach
We shudder to think what Clutch frontman Neil Fallon must have witnessed on his late-night walk along the Delaware Bay that inspired this song (“Odd things happen there”). A doomy lyric referencing ‘maritime tragedies’ is complemented by a groove like Godzilla wading ashore.