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Best Rock Music Blog

It is almost impossible to imagine Western society without the influence of rock n roll; the artists that became renowned as (rock)gods, the aesthetic, the culture that so many live and breathe, and of course, the music that became the soundtrack to our lives. Many of the greatest artists of all time are of some rock inclination; whether that be Buddy Holly, Nirvana, or The Rolling Stones – the charts simply wouldn’t be the same without the unpredictable and volatile genre.

Rock started to emerge in the 1940s through the masterful rhythm of Chuck Berry and his contemporaries. Twenty years later, The Rolling Stones became the true face of rock n roll as they advocated for sex-positive youthful rebellion; this controversy became synonymous with rock which took the genre to brand-new cultural heights. By the 70s, artists started to push rock music into heavier, darker territories. At the same time, hard rock and metal were behind conceived; Pink Floyd gave rock trippier, more progressive tendencies with their seminal album, Dark Side of the Moon. Another major move in alternative music happened in the 70s as punk artists, such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols extrapolated rock elements and fused them into their punk sound.

The 80s was the era for sleaze rock, indie rock and college rock bands, while the 90s delivered the grunge movement with Nirvana, Hole, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam chomping at the aggressive discordant bit. Mainstream rock artists from across the globe became part and parcel of the music industry at the start of the 90s, but with the death of Kurt Cobain, the popularity of alternative music took a nosedive – despite the best efforts of Limp Bizkit, Staind, Puddle of Mudd and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

In any definitive guide of the best rock bands of all time, the rock artists that made their debut in the 21st-century are few and far between. But regardless of how much you want to pull the plug on the life support of rock, it isn’t quite dead – yet. For irrefutable proof, you only need to consider Black Midi, Yungblud, Greta Van Fleet, Highly Suspect, The Snuts, and Dirty Honey, who are all bringing in the new wave of classic rock – in their own way.

Contemporary rock may not sound like it used to, but that is one way in which rock has remained consistent over the past eight decades – it never has sounded like it used to. Each new generation of artists has found room for expressive and experimental manoeuvre.

Dinosaur Death Pose Pulled Punk into the Apocalypse with ‘Dancing at the End of the World’

Posted on 1 June 2025

With Dancing at the End of the World, Dinosaur Death Pose transposed the threat of societal oblivion into a punchy alt-rock riot that affirms exactly why we languish in existential terror. The debut single from their LP No Sign of Life doesn’t flinch from the chaos; it throws a smoke bomb into the void and soundtracks the aftermath with high-octane hooks and venomous euphoria.

Formed in Dundee by John Edwards, Daryl Robertson, Connor Reilly, and Simon Cruickshank, Dinosaur Death Pose channel a love for distortion, disillusionment, and screamable choruses into every abrasion of sound. Their command of tension is surgical, their catharsis unfiltered. The razor-edged punk energy and emotionally wrought riffcraft are built to leave marks.

With high-voltage surges shredding through the standout single as a courtesy of the deliciously overdriven guitars and the drunk n roll meets 00s rock percussion only adding more volition, paired with vocals that pull you into their consoling orbit to shred away the ennui, Dancing at the End of the World achieved the impossible. It became the definitive definition of punk.

For fans of Rancid, Against Me! and Rocket from the Crypt, the connection will be instant.

Dancing at the End of the World is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

steel. Gnashed Through Verbal Impositions with the Sonic Fangs of ‘DFTTM’

Posted on 31 May 2025

steel. ripped through the monotony of passive tolerance with DFTTM (don’t fucking talk to me), a protestive anthem that doesn’t flinch while delivering its seething sermon on self-preservation. The female-led trio, forged in Liverpool’s underground in 2023, have already honed their spoken word-soaked post-punk into a serrated art form, setting themselves apart with a snarling, moody aesthetic rooted in the lineage of Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, and Pixies without rinsing their legacy for easy cool points.

With DFTTM, steel. launched a riptide of angular no-wave indie guitars and scathing lyrical defiance. It’s a full-bodied reaction to every dynamic and extension of condescension you’ve ever swallowed, loaded with the kind of vindication that leaves nothing but a scorched void in its wake. Cultdreams-esque spoken word discontent collides with a pulse that could tear right through the jugular of a juggernaut. It riles on every conceivable level, and never once pulls its punches.

This is the sound of a band that has outgrown the standard punk tantrum. They’ve turned frustration into a weapon. The kinetic energy bleeding from the instrumentation gives DFTTM a purpose beyond rebellion for the sake of noise. The morality running through it is sharp, unfeigned, and unapologetic. With support slots for Big Joanie, Skating Polly, and Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion already behind them, steel. are fast becoming the sonic frontline of DIY queer punk, and they are far from finished.

DFTTM is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Brandon Bing Carved Shadows into the Alt-Country Rock Bedrock with ‘AWAYSTEAD’

Posted on 30 May 2025
Brandon Bing

Brandon Bing’s latest release, AWAYSTEAD, tears clean through the light-soaked, roots-deep euphoria of his punchier party anthems to expose the raw marrow of his alt-country rock soul. Behind the metaphorically cerebral title lies a dark vignette that contorts his signature sound into something heavier, slower, and far more bruised. The Florida-based renegade, known for forging his own genre path with Black Dirt Music, pulls a whole new level of distortion into his sonic arsenal on this track — and he does it with a heavy heart strapped to every chord.

AWAYSTEAD feels like a confession scraped into vinyl. Bing lets his always emotive vocals bleed into the shadows of twisted guitar licks and dense, swamp-rock instrumentals. As the title suggests, this is a place of ache and unease, where finality festers and the bruises become reluctant ink for the next chapter.

The blue-collar storytelling Brandon Bing built his name on remains front and centre, only now it’s stretched across a darker canvas. It’s not about raising glasses — it’s about surviving the splinters left behind. His swampy Southern energy remains, but it’s been set alight by sorrow and scorched into something more visceral.

AWAYSTEAD is now available to stream on all major platforms. Discover all the ways to stream the single via Brandon Bing’s website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Dylan Charles Channelled a Hurricane of Soul into His Americana Rock Hymn ‘Strong at Heart’

Posted on 29 May 2025

Resilience became so much more than a buzzword in Dylan Charles’ rendered-with-soul release, Strong At Heart, which comes from a painful place of understanding how hard it is to muster fortitude as you watch your personal world and society crumble around you. Strong at Heart hits like a storm breaking through silence, and in its aftermath, leaves the kind of clarity only a hard-fought solace can offer.

The sonic equivalent of putting the top down and breathing in the catharsis of sun-soaked scenery breezing past you, Strong at Heart is a soul-stirring, heart-warming rendition. When the female vocalist joins Dylan Charles shortly before modernism meanders through the arrangement through sweetly strobing synths, you’d be hard pressed not to emotively react to the affecting, on every level, resolve of the release. I almost don’t want to spoil the surprise of the electrifyingly sanctifying crescendo as strident vocals collide with soaring guitar solos that tear through the atmosphere as a final burst of intensity.

As a recovering addict and lifelong observer of human fragility, Dylan Charles writes from the places most would rather ignore. His music is more than introspective—it’s physical. He sings like he’s lived every lyric to the bone. The NYC-based indie folk-rock artist has poured years of experience into his latest LP, Transmissions, a full-bodied record reflecting on mental health, hope and what it means to stay human when everything pushes you towards detachment.

Strong at Heart is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Lürxx Charged Through the Sonic Plains of Activist Glam Punk with ‘Mustang (The Nature of the Wild Horse)’

Posted on 28 May 2025

With riffs hotter than the climate we keep fuelling and a vocal presence as raw as the wind across the open plains, the Lürxx pushed their Nature Warrior Glam Punk manifesto into unrestrained territory with Mustang (The Nature of the Wild Horse). The only thing more visceral than their sonic rebellion is the reverence they pay to their subject: the untameable spirit of wild horses, symbolised through the true story of Kokopelli.

The single isn’t a hippy fantasy dressed up as rock. It’s a thunderous salute to the real wild and free. A demand to see beyond the self and bring the vast scope of nature into your field of vision. A call to revolution, not through destruction but by walking away from it. No borrowed defiance here. The Lürxx have written it in their blood.

With glam rock attitude, punk’s unrepentant energy and a flair for the experimental, the twin force of Xavi and Sabú left no corner of their ethos unexplored. Whether they’re shredding with recorder solos or channelling radical optimism through eco-driven lyricism, the duo write with the kind of urgency that’s only born of conviction. It’s no wonder their protest-charged resurrection of the band in 2020 lit the fuse.

The track’s apex comes when they lace rock vocals with the whinnies of a mustang. It’s unapologetically weird. And it works. Wildness isn’t a costume for the Lürxx. It’s the whole truth.

Mustang (The Nature of the Wild Horse) is now available to stream on all major platforms. For the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Crooked Cranes Thaw Nostalgia in the Sonic Heatwave of ‘Mehico’ with Proto-Punk Sun-Stroked Intimacy

Posted on 26 May 2025
Mehico by Crooked Cranes

With their latest track, Crooked Cranes set a reel of vintage college radio static on fire with proto-punk soul and surf rock swagger. Hailing from Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, this group of lifelong friends, Josh Faw, Dylan Hornaday, Andrew Bateman, and Josh’s younger brother, Addison, on bass, didn’t hold back while laying their influences bare. You can feel the aftershocks of Dinosaur Jr., Built to Spill, and The White Stripes in their foundations, but this tape-deck bruiser refuses to sit neatly beside any one influence. It glows with its own baked-out fever.

‘Mehico’ spills out like a sun-bleached sojourn between DIY indie rock adolescence and late-night poetic abandon. The angular guitar lines flicker like mirages over asphalt, while the rallying vocal delivery scorches with the kind of imagery that sears itself into your synapses. It’s the kind of track you can picture driving the emotional undercurrents of a 00s cult classic like The OC, equal parts sonic catharsis and golden-hour haze.

The lo-fi charm isn’t a by-product—it’s a calculated choice that wraps you in the warmth of nostalgic radio waves. Crooked Cranes channel the spirit of The Psychedelic Furs on a beach retreat, lifting stylistic threads from R.E.M.’s most emotionally honest cuts without ever slipping into mimicry. There’s euphoria here, curated not with gloss, but grit sanded down to something oddly soothing.

‘Mehico’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ExWife Stirs the Ashes of Rock Rebirth – An Interview with Ria

Posted on 25 May 2025

With her debut LP, ExWife’s frontwoman, Ria, throws open the windows on a decade’s worth of songwriting shaped by chaos, rebirth, and a hunger for the unvarnished truth. In this candid interview, Ria traces the arc from whispered phone demos—recorded amidst the daily reality of motherhood—to the raw, live-wire performances that define ExWife’s sound. The conversation explores the band’s commitment to authenticity in an era where perfection is polished and feeling often fades. Ria opens up about how personal upheaval, from religious restrictions to post-divorce liberation, set the stage for ExWife’s distinct voice, while also weighing in on the pitfalls of contemporary songwriting and the pulse of playing live around the Pacific Northwest. For those ready to step outside the formulaic, this is a debut—and a story—worth your full attention.

Welcome to A&R Factory, Ria – and congratulations on the release of Blow. It’s a pleasure to have you here to talk about ExWife’s debut and everything that brought it to life.

It is our pleasure to share the new record! Thank you for having us, Amelia.

Ten years is a long time to hold onto songs before releasing them into the world—how did your relationship with the material shift during that time, and what made now feel like the right moment to let Blow out?

The songs had a wild metamorphosis over these ten years. They started out as phone recordings while I was taking care of my at-the-time 2 and 3-year-old toddlers. In a lot of those early recordings, you can actually hear them singing along or asking for more crackers. But it was during the most chaotic time of my life that I felt compelled to write the majority of these songs. The band developed the sound above and beyond what I would have been able to do by myself. I enjoy bedroom recordings, but I was born to play rock and roll. The wait to release this music has been so long; most of the hangups have been around life just happening. 

You’ve mentioned that Blow was recorded almost completely live—what does capturing that kind of immediacy in the studio mean to you, and how does it affect your relationship with the songs when you take them to the stage?

For our band, it was important to be able to bring what we had made in the studio onto a live stage. This album really has very minimal overdubs, and even some of the vocals are from the live takes we did, which I feel amazing and proud about. More and more we are hearing recordings that are manipulated, comped, over-processed, and in my opinion, stray from the real thing. We’ve introduced AI into the field, and I think we are doing ourselves a disservice in the pursuit of a “perfect” album or single. I always want to strive to make our music sound like what it is – the sonic truth. Playing live is one of my favorite things in the world. Orchestrating an experience with these songs we have made is an unbelievable feeling. 

There’s clearly an emotional arc running through the 14 tracks on the record—can you talk us through the themes that tie it together and what you hope listeners take from the full record experience?

The arc I hear within the album is one of loneliness, frustration, and rebirth, but that is my interpretation. Our music is out in the world now, and I have no intention of trying to control the narrative of it. What someone feels while listening to our music is their experience alone. My entire life was wrapped up in these songs, and for me they have been a facilitator for healing and joy. I sincerely hope others might be affected in a similar way.

 Starting the band during a turning point in your relationship must have given the project a very personal core. How much of that original emotional foundation remains present in ExWife today?

ExWife will always be deeply personal for me. My bandmates are still some of the people I spend the most of my time with. 

The comparisons to artists like The Breeders and PJ Harvey are undoubtedly flattering, but you’ve said that you weren’t actively trying to sound like any era or artist. What were you chasing sonically and emotionally when shaping ExWife’s sound?

I grew up religious and was not allowed to listen to a lot of modern or classic rock, and still into my late 20s, had never listened to an AC/DC song or anything remotely heavy and dirty. After my divorce, I was free to listen to anything I wanted to, and I was always drawn to rock and roll. Any flavor, any year, I just adore rock music. This was something super new and exciting. I had started to pick up the electric guitar, and it felt like a beautiful marriage. Heavy beefy tone with the sometimes saccharine, sometimes sexy lyrics that I had been writing. The band never sat down together and said, ‘we should sound like this’, the magic just happened when we played together. We all come from different backgrounds with different musical tastes, and I think our combination sounds pretty delicious.

You’ve been open about how modern music often feels oversimplified to you. What do you think has been lost in contemporary songwriting, and what standards do you personally hold your lyrics and compositions to? 

Modern music has become more and more simplified over the years. They’ve done studies on this, and we use fewer words, limited vocabulary, sing less about love and more about pain, and even use more generic chord structure in our songs today. They say people want easy listening, but I’m not convinced this is actually what we want as individuals, but more as a society. Contemporary songwriting has become extraordinarily blunt and repetitive. For me, a good song has the ability to be vague but still evoke an emotional reaction from the lyrics. When I write songs, I am putting on different people and then viewing it from their perspective. It’s all about play and how we can shape a story within the song that is important to me.  

Gigging around the Pacific Northwest, what has stood out to you most about the live reception to your songs, and how have those shows shaped your vision for what ExWife can become?

Gigging can be very up and down. The venues are still recovering from the pandemic, and crowd attendance can be very unpredictable. I love playing live, and it’s my hope that we will be playing bigger shows down the road. Plans to add lighting and other little touches are in the works.  A lot of artists are chasing Spotify metrics, but to me, those don’t hold a candle to having a packed venue and getting to experience playing our music with a real-time reaction and response. My favorite show memory is probably playing Wild West, and the barback was standing against the back wall, absolutely locking into the groove. It’s those little moments I would play over and over again for. 

With this powerful debut now available, what’s next for ExWife creatively—and what do you feel this record has set in motion for you going forward?

We are just getting started. More music is in the works, and it is my intention to release another album very soon. Tits up, and let’s rock.

–

Stream ExWife on Spotify now, and connect with the artist via Instagram and TikTok. 

Interview by Amelia Vandergast

Conner Eko’s Indie Pop-Rock Panache Swaggers Through Protest and Funk in ‘A Farewell to Arms’

Posted on 24 May 2025

Conner Eko’s latest single, A Farewell to Arms, strides into indie pop with a funk-wrapped arrangement that lands like a gauntlet. The earworm will swagger its way right into your psyche, bringing with it an exuberance that almost defies aural science, attesting to the Cali pop artist’s alchemic approach to bringing his art to life, and in the process of doing so, giving his listeners a lust for their own lives.

This is a protest track that doesn’t flinch as it pushes the limits of what pop can be. Eko’s production turns sharp observation into music that compels action. Serpentine guitar riffs inject rock’s intensity as the track progresses, and his chameleonic vocals drive home the defiance that pulses through every line. The jaunty piano pop opening gives way to a full-scale protestive rock opera, confronting the fucked up state of America and the twisted priorities that have shaped it. Amidst the blistering commentary, Eko allows a sliver of hope to cut through for anyone searching for a semblence of sanity in the chaos.

With two decades behind him as a songwriter, educator, and astrophysicist in Vallejo, California, Eko channels lived experience and hard-won perspective into his sound. After fronting Falling Andes and pursuing science, he returns with music that’s both immediate and urgent. International collaborations with musicians from Japan, Brazil, and Portugal bring added force, but the message remains Eko’s: unfiltered, unwavering, and impossible to ignore.

A Farewell to Arms is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Fab the Rocker Spills Smoke and Defiance through the Twisted Southern Gothic of ‘Hear Me’

Posted on 24 May 2025

Hear Me, the debut single from Fab the Rocker, slinks through a haze thick with the ghosts of backstreet lamplight and late-night confessions, channelling the smoke of an opium den into the southern gothic twang of a deliciously distorted Lo-Fi rock tapestry. There’s no trace of hesitation—only the inescapable presence of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in the disquieting atmosphere, where motifs twist and distort, reflecting a mind too used to silence and too restless to settle.

Fab the Rocker, born in London and forged in Stockwell’s ‘Little Portugal’, draws from a well of lived experience—street life, loss, and the weight of grief are not veiled but declared through raw acoustic fragments and distortion that never slips into the background. This is the sound of someone who has learned that the only way to be heard is to cut through the static and tell the truth. His sonic heritage doesn’t just shape the music; it charges it with the power to turn pain into poetry. The track channels the DNA of ‘90s alt-rock, letting the influence of The Offspring, Nirvana, and the Seattle scene crash through each bar with a loud, unapologetic pulse.

Fab the Rocker’s protest isn’t soft, it is a command as much as a plea, delivered with the kind of conviction that sears itself into memory. Rock, acoustic, and grunge are stitched together with nothing left unspoken.

Hear Me is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Third Man Syndrome Set ‘Ikarus’ Ablaze with Frenetic Post-Rock Progressions

Posted on 23 May 2025

If you’re in danger of flying too close to the sun, slip into the latest progressive post-rock release, Ikarus, by Third Man Syndrome. The epic aural chronicle uses the chill of frenetic, angular, post-punk adjacent guitars to bring you back down to earth before building cinematic euphony around the progressions, lending melodicism to the release that is always waiting to flip the switch and launch you into a white hot classic guitar riff, a momentous tide of fervent energy, and whatever the soundscape demands of Third Man Syndrome to bring the saga back to life in the form of an instrumental alt-rock firestorm.

Third Man Syndrome was born from an Austrian artist’s renewed devotion to music after time away to focus on family, pouring years of reflection into the strings. Every motif in Ikarus is sculpted with purpose—balancing tension, ambition, and catharsis. The fretwork orbits myth, burning with the risk and release of flight, pushing and pulling through restless crescendos and abrupt plunges. With every passage, the track demands surrender to the drama of soaring and falling, capturing the mythos of Icarus in full instrumental form.

‘Ikarus’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast