Rock is not always pretty. Rock often crawls out from a sweaty, dirty place in the unglamorous depths of depravity. The Sons Of Hercules play rock like it’s still dangerous, like there’s going to be hell to pay. This is the polar opposite of today’s inoculated mainstream. This is balls out rock played by five San Antonio, Texas music vets who sound rather like The Stooges jamming with Lynyrd Skynyrd at AC/DC’s house. Play loud with beer.

The Sons Of Hercules
“Brain Dead” (mp3)
from “A Different Kind of Ugly”
(Saustex Media)

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Before heavy metal was called “metal” and got all speeded up, it sounded heavy – like great shards of metal colliding and melting together in the sky. Loving Thunder‘s music is like that. This sonically massive title track from their “Photographing the Wild” album is a stunner. Very Seattle in the guitar department. There’s still something in the water there which makes electric guitars sound more beastly and immense. The drums and riffs are more Zep than Nirvana, and the vocal is delivered in a beautifully creepy octave harmony like monks gone to the dark side. A quote on their myspace says simply, “The future, as envisioned by teenage stoners, in the 70′s.” Pretty f00kin accurate.

Loving Thunder
“Photographing the Wild” (mp3)
from “Photographing the Wild”
(Hot Dog City Record Co.)

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With a gr8 voice and a powerhouse band pounding along behind her, MOA can meet a chorus like “Crash, Burn and Die” and wrestle it into submission. Her album, “Do You Want Me, Death?” is everything parents hope their kids do not find out about. Saturated, melodramatic, ridiculous, and completely right.

MOA
“Crash, Burn & Die” (mp3)
from “Do You Want Me, Death?”
(Fill in the Blank Records)

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Just how much do these guys love them some Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith? This much, ladies and gents. And it sure aint a bad thing. After all, how much do you think Zep loved them some American hard rockin’ blues? It all comes around. Ocha la Rocha from Atlanta, GA, deep fries southern psychedelic blues to produce delicious old school hard rock treats. Solid combo playing, excellent vocals, belligerent drumming and wicked guitar work all add up to gr8 fun.

Ocha la Rocha
“Armadillah” (mp3)
from “Ocha Lives (Deluxe Edition)”
(U & L Records, Inc.)

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Le Mew. Le Few. Le Rock. Le Do. Ferocious Few lives up to their name with this short and sweet, hard rockin’ quicky, kitties. “Kathleen” weighs in at a mere one minute forty seconds, but she packs a rock n’ roll wallop to leave you wanting more. Pounding drums, raging guitars and a blazing rock n’ soul organ accompany a sincere serenade by a lone and hungry vocal. Le download. Lew Purr.

Ferocious Few
“Kathleen” (mp3)
from “Juices”
(Birdman Records)

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Guns N’ Roses may be long gone, but if you think their style and attitude has stopped influencing young rockers, think again. Rome, Italy’s Stick It Out is a shining beacon of rock depravity and decadence. Their conflagration of howls and electro-fried blues guitar licks pays homage to Judas Priest, Scorpions and the like, and all the flammable hair dos that followed. Rawk out hella.

Stick It Out
“Jack the Bastard” (mp3)
from “Stick Out”
(Sliptrick Records)

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The musicians in Brooklyn’s Cheeseburger probably fell into a vat of whiskey and bong water as babies. Then they did the only remaining possible thing – picked up guitars and drums and a mic and starting rocking out. “Easy Street” by Cheeseburger is lo-fi, raw, perverse, appalling and gr8. Enjoy.

Cheeseburger
“Easy Street” (mp3)
from “Cheeseburger – EP”
(Hot Dog City Record Co.)

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Big rock, big fun, big harmonies and big riffs from this band of rock n’ roll vets from Chicago, IL. Boasting a sea of instrumental and vocal chops, Supermercado covers a lot of stylistic ground in their energetic and eminently accessible approach. You’ll hear in their sound influences as broad as Guns n’ Roses, Living Colour, Van Halen, and Fishbone. “Out Of Time” even recalls the industrial-rock breakthrough of Filter’s “Hey Man, Nice Shot.” Put that in yer pod and smoke it. Massive, completely realized, contemporary rawk.

Supermercado
“Out Of Time” (mp3)
from “Chupacabra”
(Dark Star Records)

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If you’re more concerned with blowing hardcore fans’ minds and having fun than you are in pursuing any conventional commercial appeal, one thing you might do is name your band Fucked Up. This marauding gang of punkers from Ontario, Canada gained some serious momentum last year, and at this point nothing but stopping will prevent them from reaching a jubilant world wide audience. Mainstream piffle this is not. Their sound is redonkulously loud and powerful.  Exceedingly pissed vocals, and superbly creative guitar bass and drum work, all add up to some devastating and entertaining punk rawk, with a gr8 sense of musical adventure. On the Jade Tree label. Enjoy, public.

Fucked Up
“Baiting the Public” (mp3)
from “Hidden World”
(Jade Tree)

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Drunk Horse, I have to say, does something that some rock bands neglect to do these days: they rock. Of this song, I could say it sounds like Led Zep might if they came from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s corner of the American south, or I could just say it careens along like a rampaging horse, drunk and breathing fire. In reality, this band of hair farmers hails from my hometown of Oakland, California, and they kick whole truckloads of ass. Four guys with guitars, drums and real old school rawk chops. Extra crunchy, and oh so much yummy riffing goodness.

Drunk Horse
“Strange Transgressors” (mp3)
from “In Tongues”
(Tee Pee Records)

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