Category: Artists We Like

What We’re Listening To (March 7, 2025)

The halls are buzzing here at Rock is the new Roll Hall with a bevy of new music to savor as we zoom into the year.

The Cynz – Heartbreak Time

Coming to you from Brunswick New Jersey The Cynz will have you feeling Joan Jett vibes courtesy of lead singer Cyndi Dawson. “Heartbreak Time” is a retro-style rocker with plenty of earworms.

Sorrows – Out Of My Head

If you have ever sat around wondering what a band would sound like that was a mind-meld of the Stones, Beatles, and The Who and wasn’t Cheap Trick, hip your ears to Sorrows and the single from their latest record “Out Of My Head.”

Brass Camel – Borrowed Time

This gem from Brass Camel is Sly Stone funky, a bit proggy, with a lot of classic rock influences thrown in for good measue.

Blues Pills – What Has This Life Done To You

A bit of a departure from the more psychedelic side of Blues Pills, “What Has This Life Done To You” would make a terrific Bonnie Raitt cover.

Black Eyed Sons – Cowboys In Pinstriped Suits

A tribute to the glam-glitter bands of yore, most notably Mott The Hoople, “Cowboys In Pinstriped Suits features Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, Chip Z’Nuff, and Ryan Roxie.

Song of the Day: Sorrows – Out Of My Head

If you have ever wondered what a band that featured elements of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who, all by way of Cheap Trick, would sound like, no need to phone a friend. The answer is “Out Of My Head” courtesy of the sorrows, the leader in the clubhouse for Rock is the New Roll’s 2025 song of the year.

The album Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow on Big Stir Records is available now.

Five Cool Ones: Five New Albums Released This Week (February 28, 2025)

A bit of a slow week on the new release front as artists get ready for the pre-summer avalanche, but we do the work so you don’t have to.

Easy Eye Sound is at it again with Little Barrie and his fuzz-toned single from his upcoming release Electric War.

UK Indie-Punk trio Hotwax unleash their much-anticipated new record Hot Shock on March 7.

And, The Speaker Wars, featuring founding Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers member and drummer Stan Lynch has a long player due out on May 30.

But lets not rest on our musical laurels here. There a five really cool releases queued up to tickle your earbuds.

The Devil Makes Three – Spirits

With their first proper record since 2018’s Chains are Broken, The Devil Makes Three trio still apply their trade on the rails of muscular roots rock.

This time out, Spirits features more stripped-down performances with an ear towards an expression of weariness emanating from trying to keep sane in a troubled world with “Hard Times” pretty much telling it like it is.

“It’s hard, hard, hard times

They’ll charge you dollars

While they’re paying you in dimes

When they said it was going to trickle down

You know that they were lying

Mostly made while Cooper McBean was mourning the loss of his mother, brother, and best friend lamenting “How Come we got to take a bigger hit, just to get half as high.” This one is a collaborative listen from a band that wallows in the trenches with the rest of us.

Cimarron 615 – Cimarron 615

It would be auditorially impossible for a band that contains three former members of Poco and one Flying Burrito Brother to be anything but stellar. And, this latest effort, the sophomore record from the supergroup Cimarron 615, is just that, stellar and sublime in every way.

With a nostalgic mellow country-rock vibe that veers dangerously close to yacht rock in some places, as evidenced by “Fallin’,” the entire proceedings are a hot tub time machine that will take you back to simpler times.

“Butte La Rose” could have been a Don Henley single back in the day and “Night At The Radio” resonates like a late-era Eagles B side.

This one deserves more credit than it is likely to get.

Diamond Dogs and Chris Spedding – Macon Georgia Giant

For a group of renaissance rockers that typically do business in the dark alleys of 70’s British rock and roll to pay homage to Little Richard says a lot about The Diamond Dogs and even more about the king of rock and roll.

With a panoply of hits, deep cuts, and band favorites every note on this record is a scorcher. The opener, “The King Of Rock And Roll” starts things off with a bang, and things never let up all the way to the closer “Bama Lama Bama Loo.”

If this record has you scurrying to reintroduce yourself to Little Richard’s back catalog, job well done.

Split Dogs – Here To Destroy

Recklessly careening into your speakers like Ricky Bobby on a bender, Split Dogs are Lita Ford on speed run through a Motorhead filter.

Punk music like it is supposed to sound like “Monster Truck” is an absolute banger and “Precious Stones” would make The Sex Pistols blush.

This one grabs you by the gonads and doesn’t let up until you end up legs akimbo at the bottom of the black diamond slope.

Perfect Plan – Heart Of A Lion

Just wait long enough and what is old will be new again, and what was once considered lame is now being served at the cool kid’s table. And here, with melodic rock mavens Perfect Plan and their latest record Heart Of A Lion your inner ’80s Survivor jones will be satisfied and then some.

“We Are Heros” climbs out of your cable box MTV style, “Turn On Your Radio” sounds like the epic over the top, in a good way, a monster hit that the band Europe wishes they would have released back in the day, and “Little Miss Danger” would have been a Loverboy smash single right up there with “The Kid Is Hot Tonight.”