Rival+sons

Leading up to the August 2014 release of the 200th issue of Classic Rock, the 199th issue of the UK magazine featured an in-depth Rival Sons cover story, as well as the Rock 'n' Roll Excerpts Vol. 1 bonus disc. The ten song Rival Sons' compilation disc, which opens with "Open My Eyes", the first single from the Great Western Valkyrie album, provides a glimpse of the Long Beach based group's lean on the high times '70s…

Robin Everhart, the Rival Sons' founding bassist, left in late October of 2013, deciding that the grueling rigors of touring weren't for him. The band replaced him with Dave Beste in time to record the band's fourth full-length. Once more they enlisted producer Dave Cobb (who helmed the Head Down sessions) and recorded at his Nashville studio…

Since debuting in 2009 with the self-released Before the Fire, Long Beach, California's Rival Sons have been on a tear, delivering a refreshingly unfussy blast of blues-blasted hard rock on an almost yearly basis. Working once again with producer Dave Cobb, Feral Roots, the band's sixth full-length effort, comes out of the gate swinging with the 40-grit "Do Your Worst," a radio-ready banger that evokes both Led Zeppelin and the Black Keys…

Okay, let’s get this out of the way first – yes, this is the same Europe who had a global mega-hit with ‘The Final Countdown’ nearly 30 years ago (blimey!). You may laugh and you may titter but that’s one more global mega-hit than any of us have had so let’s leave the hairspray and make-up comments in the past and focus on the music, and ever since reuniting in 2003 after a decade away these all-conquering Swedes have been on peak form with such hard rocking gems as 2009’s brilliant “Last Look at Eden” and 2012’s bluesier “Bag of Bones” proving that good bands can get better with age…

Ultimately comprising members from Sweden, the U.S., and France, this retro-flavored blues-rock quartet were originally founded as a trio in 2011 when the former rhythm section of Iowa act Radio Moscow – Zack Anderson and Cory Berry – recorded a demo with vocalist Elin Larsson in her Swedish hometown of Orebro…

This was the thought that popped into most Shakedown fans’ minds when the band announced that it was–after nearly five years–releasing its second album. Fans have waited…and waited…and waited. The first Shakedown EP From the Sandcastle, released in the fall of 2011, was a rock ‘n’ roll revelation. Blues infused rock bands like Rival Sons and the Stone Foxes were already around, but still–it was so unusual to hear a band playing the way they did…