Written by Over the weekend, blues-rock duo When Rivers Meet took to Facebook to post an appeal.
“Oh wow…” they wrote. “We’re up against Foo Fighters for Classic Rock’s Tracks of the Week. It’s unbelievably close right now… and we’d love your vote.”
48 hours later, and it wasn’t close at all. When Rivers Meet’s fans heeded the call, and the band ended up with nearly half of the votes cast. We’ve done the math, and they scored 1929% more votes than Dave Grohl & Co. So congratulations to them.
The Podium of Glory™ was filled by Hollie Rogers’ Bad Woman single and Airbourne’s return to action Alive After Death (Last Plane Out). So congratulations to them, too. And now? We start from scratch. Hooray!
The Gulps – Got Ya
We’re kicking things off on a joyful note with Italian/Spanish/UK noisemakers The Gulps’ new party track. Got Ya is all over the place in the best way possible, its scuzzy indie disco sensibilities shot through with 60s pop joie de vivre, flashy guitar soloing and a huge, slightly mad sense of fun. And some 90s Britrock notes. If the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction was given a manic, punky makeover by, um, Primal Scream or someone, it might have come out like this.
Girl Tones – Stubborn Mouth
“This song is a vulnerable reflection on being headstrong and how it can ultimately deteriorate your own well-being and others around you,” Kentucky-born sister duo Kenzie and Laila say, regarding this bittersweet swirl of sunny alt-rock heartache, stabbing punkoid touches and garage-fresh distortion. Louche and loose but razor-sharp with it, Stubborn Mouth comes with a stylish music video full of forbidden fruit metaphors and chattering false teeth.
These Wicked Rivers – Ain’t No Smoke
These Wicked Rivers capture the rich, swaggering heft and grit of their live shows on this strong first taste of their next album – on its way later this year. Kicking off with a simple but effective intro verse punch, it builds through a classy cocktail of driving basslines, grunge-crooner vocals and thoughtfully deployed light and shade from start to finish. Great guitar solo, too (without being overcooked).
![These Wicked Rivers - Ain't No Smoke [Official Music Video] - YouTube](https://halloffans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/maxresdefault-3.jpg)
Märvel – Secrets
Sweden’s own high-octane, leather-masked bastions of boozy good time rock’n’roll make like Thin Lizzy at the beach on this new single. But a darker heart lurks just below those happy harmonies and feelgood guitars – themes of “isolation, fractured relationships, and the burden of internal conflict, while still holding on to a sense of movement forward”. All of which comes through Secrets’ yearning melody, and the sort of tragic touch that tends to accompany the best comedy.
The Virginmarys – White Knuckle Riding
A dreamily melancholic, MTV Unplugged-inspired reimagining of the incendiary original (from 2024’s House Beyond The Fires record), White Knuckle Riding is reborn here with a Bond-style video tale of blackjack tables, martinis and deception – its sharp-suited, suicidal hero nodding to the despairing space from which Ally Dickaty first wrote the song. An interesting, absorbing take, executed with care and class.
Kris Barras Band – Riot Of One
Last year Kris dipped back into his rootsy, bluesy side with side-project Hollow Souls. If Riot Of One is anything to go by, he’s ready to go full-hard rock again. “Obviously I have leaned fully into the fighting theme with this one, with the video shot in an MMA cage!” Kris says of this pummelling, catchy beefcake of a track, and taste of his next album Monsters We Made (coming in August). “However, the song is about more than that. It’s about feeling like it’s you against the world and saying ‘bring it on’.”
Dangerous Curves – Mr Right Tonight
Mr Right Tonight starts off with the kind of slow chug of Alabama Shakes’ Hold On, but gradually winds its way towards something that sounds like The Black Crowes covering Mr Big, with the right amount of youthful vigour matched by grown-up harmonies and arrangement. The band – a confessed troupe of “party rockers” from Melbourne, Australia – haven’t released anything since their Summertime Highs album nearly five years ago, but this bodes well for 2026.
Bloodstain – Something Sinister
If you think thrash metal peaked in about 1986, then Bloodstain are for you. Something Sinister sounds like someone grabbed early Metallica, Testament, Kreator and Megadeth, stuffed them into a blender, set those blades a-spinning, then formed the resultant paste into a band of Stockholm rockers who sound like all of them at the same time, with NWOBHM-style twin guitars set to ‘Burn’ and riffs guaranteed to get the hair flying. The band’s debut album arrives this year, and if it’s anything like this, it’ll be an enormous treat.
