“What the hell is this?!” is a perfectly legitimate reaction to hearing Somehow Jo! For the first time. It's classic rock, it's pop punk, it's thrash, it's hardcore; even death metal raises it's ugly, pox ridden head. But ‘Go With The Jo’ starts out as a Jewish folk tune played on electric guitars.

The band formed in Tampere, Finland in 2009 and released their debut album Satans Of Swing last year. They describe their music as “Alternative-moose-slappin` metal” and cite “Almighty Satan” as their manager. They groove, they rock hard, and they sing the kind of harmonies you expect to hear from cheesy ‘80s hair metal.

Their songs aren’t funny or tongue-in-cheek but they are fun and light hearted, particularly by heavy rock and metal standards. Ever since grunge and the emergence of Radiohead rock music has become austere and po-faced, Somehow Jo!’s accessible and eclectic tunes are the antidote to the sombre earnestness of modern rock.

This single, like their previous output, was recorded in the old-fashioned way with the band in a room together. Vocalist and guitarist Christian Sauren wrote the first album but ‘Go With The Jo’ and the follow-up album, due this winter, are group efforts and the collective approach to songwriting is paying dividends as this new single is the most cohesive, but also the most expansive, that they have yet released.

After the horah riffing, Sauren introduces the song with the lines “This is some nasty shit/ We are dealing with/ If you understand it/ That means you are sick” before the first incidence of the refrain “This is your new romance”. Lead guitarist Sakari Karjalainen joins in on vocals for the pop-rock chorus and contributes a melodic solo after the second chorus.

The big surprise comes in the middle eight with the tremolo pickin’, double bass drummin’, co-ordinating head-bangin’, mosh section. It’s brief but powerful and, in the context of ‘Go With The Jo’ and its lightness of tone, seems all the heavier. The chorus that follows is a mournful crescendo. It is difficult to label this band and this tune. Aside from the obvious rock and metal influences, there are punk, reggae, new wave, pop and folk touches throughout ‘Go With The Jo’. Somehow Jo! imbue everything with a communal joviality and this single is the perfect teaser for their forthcoming album.

Go With The Jo is available from iTunes.

Cyprus-based band The smallest Creature are by no means re-inventing the wheel when it comes to alternative rock, but with hook-filled songwriting and a slickly cool sound, they’re certainly doing it justice. Taking a note of inspiration from some of the genre’s biggest heavyweights - think Radiohead and Muse in their early days, The smallest Creature find themselves somewhere along the lines of ‘90s post-rock with a modern twist.

The band’s latest single is ‘Reboot’, the first of four in lead-up to the release of their debut album. Opening with a solitary strumming acoustic guitar, the vocals soon chime in: 

“Spare the rage, the silent stage/This aching fight, this burning right. This time you’re brave, this time you’re safe/This time you’re mine, I’ll take you all night”. 

Swamped in echo, lead vocalist Stefanos Marnerides’ voice is mellow in a way that breathes emotion and vulnerability, but the choruses uncover his versatility as he moves from subtle crooning to belting with a modern rock sound. The delicate backdrop of violins and acoustic guitar in the verses soon bursts into an anthemic chorus, filled with dirty, chugging guitars and a let-loose drum beat.

The smallest Creature has produced a truly catchy number and a promising taste test of the album to come. 

'Reboot' is available from Amazon and iTunes. 

London band The Survival Code play the brand of alternative-rock that begs to be heard live, think along the lines of Deftones and Biffy Clyro’s sense of untamed energy. It comes as no surprise that the group have spent the last four years amassing a loyal fan-base the good old fashion way; gigging across the country show by show.

The Survival Code’s latest single comes in the form of  'Broken Strings’. Lifted from the band’s upcoming EP of the same title, the track is a whirlwind of fervent guitars, frenzied drumming and a no-frills, no-bullshit attitude.

“Learning to cope, hanging by a tether/ There is no escaping anywhere I turn.”

Lead singer Gary McGuinness sings as though he’s nearing a state of unhinged craze, which perhaps best encapsulates the song’s overall vibe – gathering agitated tension in the verse before bursting at the seams in the mammoth chorus. 

The Survival Code have produced a track which feels repressed by the walls of its own recording; begging to break out of its shell and into a live atmosphere. If anything, that’s a testament to the band’s authenticity: in a day and age where all too many artists produce glossy, ornate tracks that only prove to be disappointing in a live setting, The Survival Code are coming out with bonafide tunes that feel like a teaser for the real thing, a tempting one at that.

'Broken Strings' is available from Amazon.

“The boy I love’s got another girl/ He might be fucking her right now”

The brash sexuality of lead single ‘Blood In The Cut’ is as honest and confrontational as Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Closer’ or Alanis Morissette’s ‘You Oughta Know’. Where Morissette sang over the Red Hot Chili Peppers, K.Flay provides her own backing, a blend of lo-fi pop, hip hop and electronica with live drums and guitar, while she delivers her revelatory analysis in the throaty, lazy fashion of MIA or Martina Topley-Bird.

American singer and songwriter K. Flay (Kristine Flaherty) has toured with Snoop Dogg, Passion Pit, 3Oh!3, Icona Pop, Third Eye Blind and Dashboard Confessional. She released a self-titled EP in 2010 and signed with RCA soon after. Her disparate sounds and influences ultimately lead to her leaving the label and she crowdfunded her debut album, Life As A Dog. The success of that album brought her to the attention of Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds who signed her to his Night Street label, a subdivision of Interscope, and made Crush Me the first release from his new venture.

'Blood In The Cut' starts out with a muted guitar with Flaherty's vocals sounding wounded and isolated. The quiet menace of the verse is countered by the big beats and synths that follow the chorus. It's a classic indie rock structure in the Pixies mould with overtones of a more reflective Macklemore & Lewis and culminates in a big singalong refrain. Flaherty has been bubbling under for a couple of years now and if any track can break her into the mainstream on her own terms, it's this one. It's an absolute cracker of a tune.

'Hollywood Forever' follows a similar template but with more of a swaying groove. The title of the track comes from the celebrity graveyard and the tone of the lyrics sound bitterly sarcastic. Sung differently this could be a vapid Katy Perry style celebration of celebrity but Flaherty injects the tune with mournful regret of broken dreams.

Flaherty usually produces her own records but for Crush Me she called in Nashville-based producer JT Daly, and LA-based producer Simon Says. The difference in the quality of the production between Life as a Dog and this new EP is substantial. 'Dreamers' opens with a synth line straight from the Chemical Brothers songbook. K.Flay started out playing rap clubs and 'You Felt Right' sounds more traditionally hip hop than the other tracks but where her earlier work wove between her rap beginnings and her indie sensibility, the latter has definitely won out on Crush Me. The hip hop history has made her lyrics more interesting and more inventively rhythmic than your average indie pop singer. Crush Me is K.Flay's most accomplished and coherent work to date and she has a substantial back catalogue behind her to bolster the live show. Well worth checking out if she continues to produce songs of this quality.

Crush Me is available from iTunes.