Weekly Guitar Essentials: Sleater Kinney, Paramore, Unschooling and more
This week: unreleased Tom Petty, French post-punk and some surprising collaborations.
Image: Daniel Boczarski / Getty
Welcome to Weekly Guitar Essentials, a roundup of 10 of last week’s best guitar-driven tracks, featuring the biggest guitar bands on the planet to your new favourite underground discovery. You can follow the playlist on our Spotify, or check out each track in more detail below!
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Help Me
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers fans are about to receive an expanded version of the 2010 album Mojo, entitled Extra Mojo Version – Help Me is one of the two previously unreleased tracks from the new bonus material. It’s a laid-back cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’s original, complete with, complete with bluesy, warbling organ and harmonica.
Unschooling – Public Transit
Remember Television? Unschooling do. The debut records from the French weirdo-post-punkers is full of grin-inducing chorus-laden guitar lines and odd vocal delivery. Jangle ain’t dead!
Paramore – C’est Comme Ça (Re: Wet Leg)
Paramore’s feature-stacked remix album of This Is Why, Re: This Is Why is all great – but Wet Leg’s reimagining of C’est Comme Ça is especially enjoyable. Check it out, then check out the whole thing.
Sleater-Kinney – Hell
There’s new Sleater-Kinney on the way! Little Rope’s lead single Hell lulls you into a false sense of security with spacious, myterious chords before kicking you in the face with fuzzed-out lead lines.
Holly Humberstone – Kissing In Swimming Pools
Holly Humberstone’s songwriting keeps on getting better and better, and here it’s showcase in a minimalist, driving track that’s dripping in atmosphhere.
Avenged Sevenfold feat. Pussy Riot – We Love You Moar
We didn’t see it coming either, no, but this remix of one of the most insane tracks from A7X’s latest is bags of fun, even you spend half of it wondering if this is really the same band that made Bat Country. Plus, the track’s proceeds go to SOS North Caucasus, a charity that helps LGBTQ+ people facing danger in the North Caucasus, Russia.
HEALTH – Children Of Sorrow
HEALTH’s are back, and their industrial metal is as uncompromising as ever. The guitar sounds massive, and the vocal production is frankly awesome.
Blink-182 – Dance With Me
Well, the album wasn’t all going to be heartfelt ballads, was it? It’s great to see Blink back and having fun again, especially as they cosplay as the Ramones in the video.
Sufjan Stevens – A Running Start
It’s the new Sufjan Stevens. It’s impeccable, beautiful, gorgeous, heartbreaking – what were you expecting?
Cherry Glazer – I Don’t Want You Anymore
Cherry Glazer are really good at injecting grungy fuzz into modern indie-rock while keeping the best of both worlds – check out their whole new record if you’re into that sort of thing, but in any case I Don’t Want You Anymore is a great, jangly guitar-driven track.