Page 24 - Classic Rock (February 2020)

Dirty Honey

Yola

Joyous Wolf

DIRTY HONEY
This LA-based group play “new old-fashioned
rock’n’roll”; think of a beefier Black Crowes fronted
by the love child of Axl Rose and Steven Tyler, and
you’re in the right ballpark. In their two years as
a band they’ve opened for Guns N’ Roses, The
Who and Slash, and become the first unsigned
band to top Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs
chart, with the ace When I’m Gone. Their self-titled
EP is full of more retro-but-fresh belters like that
one, and this year they’re planning to come to this
side of the pond, so watch this space.

JOHN (TIMESTWO)
Our top tips for the coming year (and indeed the decade).
If you liked the intelligent, infectious racket of Idles,
Words: Polly Glass but also like your metal on the roaring, doomy
side, then you’ll love this duo from London.
nother decade begun, another and artists we like – the ones we think you like too So-called literally because they consist of two
round of speculation regarding – then things don’t look too shabby. These guys are guys named John, their description of themselves
whose music will make a big part of the new wave of artists playing first-rate (“four arms, four legs, two heads, wood, metal
impression over the next 10 rock (of various different shades), and we reckon and plastic”) gives a good idea of the bullshit-free
A years. If we were to hedge our they have a good chance of tapping into the rawness at work here. But it doesn’t really do
own bets based on the most-streamed artists of zeitgeist over the next decade. justice to the mix of classic punk, jagged alt.rock
2019 – a list topped by Ed Sheeran and Ariana With the likes of The Struts and Greta Van Fleet and menacing metallic sensibilities at work on
Grande, and utterly dominated by pop and urban already blazing the trail, and Massive Wagons their album Out Here On The Fringes. There’s
music – we’d probably have to concede that proving that great tunes and a passionate grass- a cinematic atmosphere in places too, like the title
rock’n’roll is… well, a bit fucked. roots following can get you a Top 20 album, the track’s distorted refrain of ‘the bodies lined up, the YOLA: ALYSSE GAFKJEN/PRESS
But of course lists like these only tell part of the resurgence is well under way. So let’s dive into the bodies lined up’. It’s chilling, in a good way. They tour
story, and if we’re talking about the sort of bands next phase, and look at some names to watch. the UK this month and next.

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