Innehållsförteckning för Summer 2025 från Classic Rock

There’s a part of me that refuses to believe that Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms can be celebrating its 40th birthday this year. It seems only a few years ago that I listened to it on a cassette that a friend’s elder brother taped for me (yeah, we were killing music, remember?). I remember it being a staple on my stereo for a very long time. Then, as these things have a habit of happening, I didn’t listen to it for an absolute age. I was reminded of its excellence in 2001 when the title track was used to brilliant effect scoring a scene in US political drama The West Wing. It was enough to rekindle a love affair with Dire Straits’ finest hour. This issue we talked to Mark…

He was the talent of a generation, just 17 years old when his band The McCoys topped the US singles chart with Hang On Sloopy, their cover of a past hit for the R&B group The Vibrations, in the summer of 1965. The first of seven hit singles, Hang On Sloopy was the start of it all for The McCoys and a launch pad for guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer Rick Derringer, a fiercely ambitious and prodigiously gifted entertainer who would go on to have a career that lasted for six decades. Back in ’65, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones had taken the United States by the scruff of the neck as part of the so-called British Invasion and were giving it a damned good shake. Though less celebrated,…

“I’m a huge fan of people like Queen and Guns N’ Roses, bands from the time before sub-genres.” Dave Winkler, frontman with Star Circus, the London-based quartet who represent the missing link between ELO and Def Leppard, used to spend his evenings pretending to be other people. “I was Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance for a bit,” he says, smiling, “Then I was Ozzy Osbourne; one time a Brazilian couple came up to me and said that they’d seen me at Rock In Rio, which was astounding, really.” Huh? If you haven’t already guessed, Winkler was a hired hand before Star Circus, playing in other people’s bands, including tribute acts. It paid the bills at least, he reflects. Seemingly he’s drawn on this range of experience across the rock…

Kenny Leckremo is a man with no ‘off’ switch. H.e.a.t’s ebullient frontman arrived only seconds ago, yet here he is, beaming a thousand-watt smile. “Let me get rid of this jacket, I’m burning up,” he says, shrugging off his leather without breaking his verbal stride. He’s currently on the road as part of his side hustle as guest singer with power metallers Avantasia, but today his enthusiasm is focused on his regular band’s gleaming new album Welcome To The Future, his second record with the Swedish hard rock champions since rejoining in 2020 after the departure of Erik Grönwall, who replaced him a decade earlier. The album is called Welcome To The Future. What does the future look like through H.e.a.t’s eyes? We called it that because this album doesn’t…

It might be overshadowed by that looming resonator guitar, but Dire Straits’ back catalogue runs far deeper and richer than Brothers In Arms. From 1978’s hardscrabble self-titled debut to the hit-and-miss coda of 1991’s On Every Street – via arguably the best live record of all time – this is the story of the calm before (and after) the storm, told through six very different albums. Dire Straits (1978) The late-70s pub circuit of South London was an inauspicious launch pad (“Deptford was an armpit back then”) and Knopfler’s men – career sloggers perilously close to their thirties – could easily have ossified into the no-hoper jazz band he so candidly observed on Sultans Of Swing. But with no small irony, the demo of that song – chronicling the small,…

Volbeat God Of Angels Trust UNIVERSAL Danish rock’n’rollers revel in the heavy. If you were looking for a visual metaphor for Volbeat’s music, it’d be a bloke in a rhinestone jumpsuit turning around to reveal a bullet belt and a gnarly death metal tee. Twenty years and nine albums in, their rockabilly-meets-Metallica-via-Entombed approach remains a unique fixture on the heavy metal landscape, God Of Angels Trust offering no major reinvention. That said, it kicks harder than a mule in lead boots. After 2021’s Servant Of The Mind, frontman Michael Poulsen took time out to reconnect with his death-metal roots with side-project Asinhell, and judging from the riffs of Angels Trust he clearly hasn’t scratched the itch for the hard stuff. Married to his typically bombastic vocals – part Steve Perry,…

Larry McCray Heartbreak City KTBA Life can be cruel to an old-school blues shouter in his autumn years. But while 65-year-old Larry McCray has suffered enough low times – cancer, divorce, raising a teenager alone – to justify that hard-luck album title, there’s been a heartening uptick of late for the Rust Belt survivor, reflected in the new music. With a certain inevitability, all roads lead back to Joe Bonamassa, the younger guitarist having co-produced McCray’s restorative Blues Without You (2022), and he returns to urge to another set of bullish and boisterous performances. There’s the voice, of course: a velveteen bark that deserves to be cited in the same pub argument as BB King or Little Milton, and elevates upbeat tracks like Crazy World and Everything Falls On Me to…

Rod Stewart Ultimate Hits WARNER MUSIC With a Faces reunion apparently imminent, what better opportunity to trot out another batch of Rod’s greatest unit shifters (in either one-or two-CD options). There isn’t much from the superb early albums you’ve already got. So that’s not a problem. But then again… is? 7/10 Carter USM Worry Bomb CHRYSALIS A drum machine wasn’t all CUSM had going for them, but this fifth LP (now on three CDs, with B-sides/live Phoenix ’94), which introduced drummer Wez, coincided with a punkward creative downturn. Let’s Get Tattoos is still a banger, but the magic’s diminished. 7/10 Testors Prime Primitive 1976-1977 GREEN NOISE Fourteen identipunk tracks from CBGB-era NYC vocalist/guitarist Sonny Vincent’s Testors you’ve probably never heard that demonstrate why you’ve probably never heard them: an…

Returning to the UK for the first time since the passing of their last true original member, guitarist Gary Rossington, southern rock icons Lynyrd Skynyrd are also releasing a live album of his final show with the band and won’t rule out the possibility of making new music. In fact, says singer Johnny Vant Zant, it’s just “a question of time”. Skynyrd’s final show with Gary Rossington is released on June 27 as Celebrating 50 Years: Live At The Ryman. Five months later he was gone. It must have been an emotional night in Nashville. It sure was. Gary’s health was getting really bad. He called me and said: “Hey bubba” – Gary called everyone bubba – “I may even have to sit down.” But eventually he felt well enough…

ALASTAIR STEVENSON Editor-In-Chief of What Hi-Fi? Alastair is an avid music fan, audiophile and enthusiastic, but untalented, guitar player. With an ear on the ground for all things audio-related, whether it’s the latest gossip on codecs, the ever-present vinyl-vs-CD war, how to position your speakers or which King Crimson track you should be using to test your system, he’s got you covered. He waxes lyrical about CDs on p38. GRAHAM HUMPHREYS Graham is an illustrator with 45 years of experience behind him. Among his most significant early film posters are The Evil Dead and A Nightmare On Elm Street, headlining a career in the horror genre. Graham works with traditional paint-on-paper and is in constant demand with commissions for LP sleeves, book covers, movie posters and more. Recent clients include…

Mark St John Died May 17, 2025 Mark St John (born Mark Ibbotson) managed the affairs of The Pretty Things for more than three decades, during which he wore a number of hats on behalf of the group, including being producer, songwriting partner and occasional drummer. Fiercely devoted to his clients, he even managed to reclaim ownership of The Pretty Things’ recorded catalogue by taking their old record companies to court. Chris Hager Died May 19, 2025 The former guitarist with LA metal acts Rough Cutt and Ratt has passed away at the age of 67. “I’m saddened to hear about the passing of Christopher,” Ratt singer Stephen Pearcy wrote online. “Chris and I started [Ratt forerunners] Mickey Ratt together, and he was an amazing person, a great guitarist and…

A new documentary on Judas Priest is in the pipeline. Titled The Ballad Of Judas Priest, it will be co-directed by Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello and Sam Dunn of Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey fame. Styx release their eighteenth studio album on July 18 via Alpha Dog 2T/UMe. The Chicago band say that Circling From Above examines the “complexities of the human experience through the intersecting lenses of technology and nature”. The Leadmill, Sheffield’s longest-running live music venue, has lost its appeal against an eviction notice. In its 45 years presenting live music it has hosted shows by, among many others, Def Leppard, Muse and the Manic Street Preachers. Iron Maiden are requesting that fans do not excessively film or photograph the show on their latest tour, Run…

A remarkable war of words has broken out between Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump after Springsteen slammed the US president and his “corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration” during a concert in Manchester. The speech was later released as part of his six-track EP Land Of Hope And Dreams. Trump responded quickly, insisting that Springsteen is “highly overrated” and “not a talented guy” and branding him a “dried out prune of a rocker”. Neil Young backed The Boss, posting at his website: “I am not scared of you, [Trump]. Neither are the rest of us. You are forgetting your real job. You work for us. Wake up Republicans! This guy is out of control. We need a real president!” During a gig in Finland, Robert Plant commented: “Bruce Springsteen is touring…

Appearances can be deceiving. And when it comes to Battlesnake, seven Australians who perform wearing cleric reptilian costumes, it’s difficult to know what to expect. Over the past few years the band have performed to many surprised audiences in support of Kiss, The Smashing Pumpkins and Jane’s Addiction, as well as on international headline tours of their own. “I remember walking out on stage at a massive arena, and it was silent,” recalls keytar player Billy O’Key. “I could literally hear people going: ‘What the fuck is this?’” “It’s my favourite reaction. And then throughout the set we convert them,” guitarist Ben Frank adds. With the release of their snappily titled second album Dawn Of The Exultants And The Hunt For The Shepherd, Battlesnake are continuing to proselytize the masses…

Even more than a Fender Strat, the guitar most powerfully associated with Knopfler’s work in Dire Straits is of course the National Style 0 resonator that appears against a background of blue sky on the cover of Brothers In Arms. It was no mere prop, however, and is still used extensively today for studio and live work – Mark uses it to play the intro to Romeo And Juliet, for example. The guitar dates to around 1936/37, and although it’s a very familiar guitar it hides a few details that might not be obvious at first glance, such as the right-hand F-hole, which conceals a jack socket for an instrument cable so the guitar can be plugged in and its internal pickup can be used. Due to its position, only…

It’s 5pm on a Bank Holiday weekend. Central London is sunny and packed. Eureka Machines have piled into an old Soho boozer (about the only one without football crowds, or Sunday roasts flying overhead) ahead of their gig at the 100 Club later, when Chris Catalyst has a revelation. The sort that tend to come near the end of your first pint, as you contemplate a second round, surrounded by people who’ve known you for ever. “I think pissing around is really important,” the frontman/songwriter-in-chief declares between sips of stout. “I’ve got a friend who goes to [male suicide prevention charity] Andy’s Man Club, and he says it’s been fantastic, because as he got older, and people started having kids, getting married and working away and that kind of thing,…

Summer’s here, festivals beckon, tours are kicking off and new albums are flying out like chip shop orders after last encores – freshly fried, hot, tasty and exactly what you want, when you need it the most. Collectively, and in their own different ways, all our Hot List entries this month make great summer soundtrack tunes. From sun-baked southern rockers to feral punk’n’roll party tracks, pop melodies and more, it’s a timely reminder that backyard barbecues and beach days can be about more than just a few cold ones and your millionth replays of Sweet Home Alabama, Boys Of Summer, Summer Of ’69 etc, etc (swell as those classics obviously are). There’s always good new stuff, if you know where to look. We hope you enjoy this edition’s choices, and…

Lifeguard Ripped And Torn MATADOR Following in the grand tradition of Chicagoan post-punk noise-pop, Ripped And Torn finds the early-Siouxsie/Banshees-styled three-piece employing rhythmic sideswipes, jarring guitar clangour and dub bass frequencies through a production filter marked ‘Mud’. 6/10 Phase Transition In Search Of Being SELF-RELEASED Porto trio PT started as a Dream Theater covers band, but there’s more to their ambitious debut than mimicry. Self-conscious complexity can drag, but vocalist Sofia Beco doubles on violin, and when Iberian flourish meets soaring crescendo, sparks surely fly. 7/10 Strange Boutique Let The Lonely Heart Sing CIRCLE MUSIC/BOUTIQUE THINGS If the first album from the DC goth ‘legends’ in 31 years tells us anything, it’s that there’s a lot more to being Elizabeth Fraser than simply wearing black velvet and frowning at a…

Metallica Load (Deluxe Box Set) Best Of UMC/MERCURY Hard rock ‘experiment’ gains deafening array of bells and whistles. Subtitled ‘The Whole Kitchen Sink’, this 10-pound-plus package doesn’t exactly scrimp. Its 301 remastered tracks, 245 of which are previously unreleased, are generously spread across 15 CDs and six 180-gram vinyls along with four DVDs of live shows, rough mixes, demos and all the other stuff serious ‘Tallica collectors have come to expect of the band’s gold standard back cat boxes. There’s a picture disc, laminates, picks, posters, prints, a pack of 14 Rorschach Test cards and a weighty 128-page hardcover book with lashings of exclusive content both editorial and pictorial. So it’s great, quite the artifact, eminently desirable but at a penny less than 250 quid, is Metallica’s sixth, Bob Rock-produced…

The Manticore Tapes BMG Old songs, new clothes. “English rock band Motörhead released 23 studio albums, 10 live recordings…” No. Scratch that. Because what we have here is a Motörhead prequel, a ‘new’ studio album, true dirty gold from the vaults. The Manticore Tapes is a lovingly restored recording of the first full-length session the legendary Three Amigos ’Head line-up – Lemmy, ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke, Phil ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor – made, recorded at Emerson Lake & Palmer’s Manticore Studios in a converted ABC cinema on London’s Fulham Palace Road in August 1976. Following the departure of Pink Fairies guitarist Larry Wallis, it was more a ‘Fuck you we’re going to document this’ gesture than a serious attempt at fame. Voted “the best worst band in the world” in NME, no…

Intruder Peter Gabriel No Self Control Peter Gabriel Games Without Frontiers Peter Gabriel Mirage Siouxsie & The Banshees Metal Postcard Siouxsie & The Banshees Making Plans For Nigel XTC Ten Feet Tall XTC New Year’s Day U2 Two Hearts Beat As One U2 Big Country Big Country Fields Of Fire Big Country Thousands Are Sailing The Pogues Fiesta The Pogues Pretty In Pink The Psychedelic Furs Dumb Waiters The Psychedelic Furs I’m Lucky Joan Armatrading No Love Joan Armatrading Waterfront Simple Minds Up On The Catwalk Simple Minds…

Russell and Ron Mael never stand still. Since the birth of Sparks back in 1972, the singer and keyboard player siblings have operated within multiple genres, including pop, rock, new wave, synth-rock and disco, but always sounded like only themselves. We caught up with Russell prior to their latest tour, based on new album MAD!. Sparks have released twenty-eight albums across seven decades, toured and explored side projects. Your parents must have instilled a very strong work ethic in you both Our work ethic comes from ourselves and each other. We enjoy what we do and always want to be doing something adventurous and special that excites us. Then we know we will be satisfied creatively, and hopefully our fans will be happy too. Sparks do things that other bands…

Steven Wilson London Palladium Complex dark matter with a human heart at the fourth night in Wilson’s solo run at the Palladium. There’s a moment of deliciously close-to-the-bone truth tonight. Somewhat surprisingly, it’s generated by Steven Wilson’s curveball support act – one of several things that make this ‘old-school’ show feel sharp, energised, innovative, shaking dust from the Yes, Jethro Tull and Kraftwerk T-shirts gathered in their masses. “For the younger people in the audience…” FrankSkinner begins to explain a joke that hasn’t quite landed. On cue, a bloke in the stalls booms: “There are none!” This isn’t strictly correct, but it’s not far off either. That self-aware streak will carry into our headline set, Wilson poking fun at his audience without losing his affection or respect for them. Standing…

“Richard Thompson is one of those rare guys that does it all. He’s got that Hendrix thing.” It’s more than three decades since Counting Crows blew up big with their multimillion-selling debut album August And Everything After. But, as new album Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets! demonstrates, the US rockers’ knack for soulful and stirring anthems remains as potent as ever. As you’ll see, there’s a variety of influences that go into the band’s melting pot, as frontman and band leader Adam Duritz takes us on a tour through some of the sounds that have shaped his life. THE FIRST MUSIC I REMEMBER HEARING My parents had a lot of Beatles albums. I remember listening to them. And they took me to see The Jackson 5 at a rodeo in…

Inspired by the success of previous books Motörhead: Where Is Lemmy? and Rush: Where Is Geddy, Alex, And Neil? among others, LA-based publishers/animation studio Fantoons publish Where Is Ozzy?, a new, officially licensed seek-and-find book, on July 29. Its 36 colourful pages are inspired by the songs, albums and major milestones from Ozzy’s solo career, including the Suicide Solution court case, and of course featuring a veritable deluge of bats, crucifixes and fire-breathing dragons. With Easter eggs for hard-core and casual fans alike, each double page is brought to life in vibrant illustrations by the award-winning studio who also created Ozzy Osbourne: The Official Colouring Book. From the start of Ozzy’s solo career with the album Blizzard Of Ozz, his story is told in wonderful and colourful glory. In the…

Jimmy Page is again being sued by the American artist who wrote the song Dazed And Confused. When Led Zeppelin recorded it for their debut album in 1969, Page was credited as the sole songwriter. Holmes’s original version had appeared two years earlier on his debut The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes. After a copyright infringement lawsuit in 2010, the credit was amended to: “Page – inspired by Jake Holmes”. Now Holmes, 85, is suing again. This time, Page’s co-defendants include Sony Pictures, who Holmes claims incorrectly credited the track in this year’s Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary. Holmes believes two early live recordings of Dazed And Confused appear in the film without his permission and without payment. The legal papers also allege that Page has released a number of…

“Some tours were hard. We’d get into fights. We would hate each other towards the end.” Ravagers are the US’s greatest post-apocalyptic rock’n’roll band. I dunno if you realise this, but it’s over, man. The good guys lost. “I thought it was a cool concept,” says Ravagers main man Alex Hagen from his hotel in Spain, where the band are on tour. “The name reminded me of a seventies exploitation grindhouse movie where the world is over, and there’s just rabid gangs of crazy people on the streets. I related that a lot to the neighborhood I lived in in Baltimore when I started the band.” End-of-the-world vibes, long hair, tight pants and ripsaw sleaze guitars, Ravagers have everything you need for your next street rumble. Half Hanoi Rocks, half…

The Best Years Of Our Lives CHRYSALIS Lavishly expanded 50th-anniversary edition. Includes the biggest hit. In early 1975, Steve Harley, leader and sole songwriter of Cockney Rebel, was in a tricky position. In June 1974, their almost guitar-free second album, The Psychomodo, reached the UK Top 10. Then, other than loyal drummer Stuart Elliott, Harley’s band deserted him over his refusal to share songwriting. He wrote a bitter song about it called Make Me Smile (Come Up & See Me), and brought in a less rebellious Rebel which included former Family man Jim Cregan, the first indication that guitars would be more prominent. Time was pressing. Just nine months later The Best Years Of Our Lives was released, credited to Steve Harley + Cockney Rebel (not even a collaboration-implying ‘And’),…

The Who: Album By Album – Listening To You Dante DiCarlo PEN & SWORD Much more than just an albums overview. “The song starts with a shimmering D chord, strummed on Pete’s twelve-string Rickenbacker […] then the harmonized vocals enter before the whole band kicks in, led by Keith’s insistent drumbeat and Pete’s chiming arpeggiated guitar chords” – author Dante DiCarlo on The Kids Are Alright. This is a book by a fan for fans – DiCarlo is the longest-standing member of prime Who tribute band Who’s Next (he’s Pete Townshend). This means you’re not necessarily going to get much pungent gossip here, although, being a Who fan, he does relish the bust-ups and brawls, the broken strings and fractured relationships, and doesn’t shy away from including them when required.…