I have been through some stuff recently and shifted a lot of life gears and I have done so musically too, away from a lot of heavier music. The last time I was really digging a rock act was 2018-ish when I was really into Highly Suspect. I thought their songs were off the chain, refreshing, awesome.
I took a 180 into outlaw country, Billy Strings and sundry country/Americana and I want to listen to some new rock music too. Any recommendations? I tried a band called The Warning from Mexico I think? All female band, their songs were okay, but I didn’t connect with them a ton.
What am I missing that I gotta hear?
Not necessarily new per se, but probably newer but unknown to many. These are some bands that I discovered over the last few years after learning about a genre called “stoner rock”.
From US:
All them Witches
Valley of the Sun
King Buffalo
From Greece (singing mostly in English):
1000Mods
Villagers of Ioannina City
From Sweden (mostly in English):
Truck fighters
Dozer
And from Norway (mostly in English): Madrugada
These bands IMHO are really solid, sincere rock bands.
Valley of the Sun, Truck fighters, Dozer, and 1000Mods are heavier bands while the others, though less heavy, are really interesting and complex.
Villagers of Ioannina City could be considered folk-metal as they are a quite heavy guitar-based band with a bagpipe player who also plays a recorder, clarinet and didgeridoo, so they have a really interesting sound.
Church of the Cosmic Skull is one of my favorite new bands. They’re a psychedelic band from Nottingham, England with a throwback sound, six-part vocal harmonies, and a gimmick where the group all wear matching white outfits and present themselves as being a New Age cult, with singer/lead guitarist “Brother Bill” as their leader. I got to meet them when they played a show here in 2022 (I’m the one on the left with the buzzcut);
Following up on stoner rock, I’ll add a few names. I won’t swear that a stoner rock purist would accept that label for these bands, but I’d think they’re at least “adjacent.”
Hey Colossus
The Black Wizards
Lemurian Folk Songs
Electric Moon
I’m not going to put any of them in my list of top favorites, but sometimes they hit the spot quite nicely.
And less psychedelic but worth mentioning, all with at least occasional blues influences:
North Mississippi Allstars (They’ve been around for a while but are still current, I think. Their most recent release was two years ago. Start with Shake Hands with Shorty or World Boogie Is Coming)
Adia Victoria
Abbe May
Another interesting group I’ve seen lately is Twin Temple. It’s a husband-and-wife duo who are practicing Satanists and perform what they call “Satanic doo-wop”; '50s-style rockabilly with lyrics about devil-worship, sexual liberation, feminism, and other fun activities.
I’m gonna spoilertag this link to the song “Let’s Have a Satanic Orgy” because the song and video are definitely NSFW and includes gratuitous animated nudity;
And if you’re a guitaraholic, there’s a group called Stone Rebel that I stumbled upon in the Youtube rabbit-hole and they pump out fantastic one or two hour long albums that are these long guitar instrumentals which are beautiful to just relax to.
Chappell Roan was on Colbert not long ago and I was surprised how much I enjoyed their performance of ‘Red Wine Supernova’.
Royal Blood is still regularly putting out fantastic rock albums. Their latest album is from 2023 – new enough?
A stoner rock band which is no longer arguably stoner rock would be Elder. Their last album Innate Passage has pretty much junked the grinding stoner drone in favor of inventive hard rock with frequent dynamic chord and key changes, very propulsive and inventive without being cheesy or cliched.
[thread is no good without YT links!]
Elder is pretty much a straight prog band now. I saw them a little while ago. Good show but barely metal. Opeth followed a similar path.
I’ve been listening to some female fronted neo-psychedelic and/or doom bands lately. Three that come to mind are Stonefield, Blackwater Holylight, and The Well.
I’m going to see Valley of the Sun in July, supporting Atomic Bitchwax and Heavy Temple.
Very lucky you🤟
Have you heard of 1000Mods? I saw them in a basement venue in Montreal last September. Had a blast!
Yeah, I saw both VotS and 1000mods at Desertfest last September. It’s a great festival BTW. I doubt I’ll make it this year, but who knows.
Queens of the Stone Age, no stoner rock list would be complete without Josh Homme and his varied yet excellent band lineups
When Rivers Meet, a husband and wife blues duo from England: They ROCK! https://youtu.be/gChWvNwaDf8?si=fI1cTfF2cT6QQvjG
When Rivers Meet, a husband and wife blues duo from England: They ROCK!
Oh my man! I woke up to return to this thread, and after protein shakes and edibles this is what’s up! The “glorified sorcerors and saboteurs” line is great, the “selling sincerity” is on point. Great guitar work, great harmonies!
I laughed my ass off. This may be one of those times where I wish I had heard the song first without the context to their stage act, haha. I am trying tom imagine how I would have interpreted it differently but now I am going to yearn for the eye contact of the Rhodes and Flying V players and imagine that instead going forward. Good looking out, great song!
Maybe I’m being a curmudgeon here, but 99% of new “rock” music bores me. I still listen to the stuff made between 1965 and 1975.
Every now and then, though, I will hear a new band that I find… interesting. One of them is a band from Japan called 88Kasyo Junrei. A couple videos here and here. (That guitarist is awesome.) Another is a band from Germany called Kadavar.
Royal Blood is pretty cool (Blue Stones also). I can only listen to so much of that though, same with anything that’s like Rival Sons, Greta Van Fleet, etc. It’s a little too “been there, done that”.
Thanks C_M, I appreciate that. I need to remember how to use the multi-quote, that’s still a thing, right?
