Weekly Guitar Essentials: WILLOW, Green Day and… The Beatles?
2023 sees an unexpected release, plus new music from pop-punk royalty and some BIG riffs.
Image: Mark and Colleen Hayward / Getty
Welcome to Weekly Guitar Essentials! Your rundown of the last seven days of guitar music. We all like guitars, yes, it’s why we’re here, but people actually making stuff with them is kind of the point. So we’ve picked out the best guitar-centric tracks from the last week for you to get your ears around, whether it’s the biggest names in music or your next underground obsession, like this tiny indie band we have first up:
The Beatles – Now And Then
Yes, that’s right, set your clocks for half a century ago, because there’s new Beatles out. Harrison, McCartney and Starr had unsuccessfully attempted to finish this track in the 1990s. But with the AI technology now available to extract John Lennon’s voice from the noisy demo tape, Harrison’s guitar parts reintegrated and a final pass done by McCartney and Starr, we now have one more track worked on by all four members of the band, as well as a short documentary about the process.
WILLOW – alone
Back to the 2020s – this new track from WILLOW features an absolutely infectious staccato guitar riff that melts into jazzy chords underpinning her soulful, layered vocals. Strangely, it kind of sounds a little bit like a Black Midi breakdown? In, absolutely, a good way.
Johnny Marr – The Answer
A new track from Johnny Marr’s compilation album Spirit Power, The Answer is distinctly post-punk but has some – maybe surprising – new wave echoes on display, with driving synths, a choppy, wah’d out guitar riff, and some tasty gated snare ‘verb.
Spiritbox – Cellar Door
Spiritbox’s latest EP, The Fear Of Fear, arrived last Friday, and on it we were gifted Cellar Door, perhaps the heaviest thing that band has ever released with a fucking huge riff that just gets bigger and bigger.
MGMT – Mother Nature
Yes, MGMT, famously synth-driven band are indeed on this list thanks to new track Mother Nature – calming things down a bit from Spiritbox, it’s a warm, friendly number that sounds a little bit like the big chart hit of a 60s garden-psychedelia band.
Green Lung – The Forest Church
Green Lung are really, really good at making metal that sounds like a rediscovered dusty eight track that’s been hidden in a haunted Birmingham sound studio since the 1970s. For new record This Heathen Land, expect the same amount of spook, but bigger solos and a whole lot more organ.
Guided By Voices – The Race Is On, The King Is Dead
The ever-prolific Guided By Voices have just released the second single from their third album of this year (of course). The Race Is On, The King Is Dead is a triumphant, weird little indie rock track that sees GBV doing what they do best.
Green Day – Look Ma, No Brains!
It’s more Green Day! And once again, it dives back to the roots harder than one of those machines that picks up entire trees. Pure, old-school pop-punk about being dumb.
Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard – Therapy
Yes, it’s the other band with an animal over and over again in their name. And it’s the other band with lots of double-zs in their name that makes odd, psych-flavoured retro rock. In any case, Therapy is a driving track with some killer fuzzed out solos towards the end.
HAWXX – Fathertongue
HAWXX’s full-length debut is here, and boy is it a good time. With massive, heavy riffs mixed with earworm hooks all over the place, the band are also exploring some four-part harmonies as on this track Fathertongue – to awesome effect.