In 2025, Canadian hard rock/metal veteran Ian Blurton released ‘Crimes of The City’, the second album to credit his band Future Now. With nods to Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult and 70s era Judas Priest, the album pitched itself very squarely in the direction of the older melodic metal fan, but with ten solid sounding tracks and no obvious filler, it was the kind of record that proved that old school sounds can still be very effective.
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the more interesting tracks that have landed in our inbox over the past few weeks. This time around, you’ll find a great example of alt-metal, an unexpected gem from a legend of 80s goth, a decent slice of power pop, well crafted tunes from a couple of singer songwriters, and more… As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy!
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Having put Indonesian Junk on hold, Daniel James resurrected his old punk band Chinese Telephones in 2024. At the point where it seemed that might be his main focus for a while, the ever restless musician appeared with a new band The Daniel James Gang at the beginning of 2025. Their debut EP mixed garage rock with power pop and a pinch of proto-punk to deliver something high on energy, and occasionally even bigger on grit. The material didn’t all work to the musicians’ best advantage – ‘Misery’ (written before the Gang were in place) – felt as if James were just marking time, looking for new inspiration, but the title cut ‘Darkness Over This Town’ introduced far more of a power pop influence than James had explored before, and this lean towards broader melodies really helped most of the new material to stand out.
Goat Major’s debut album (‘Ritual’, released in 2024) was one of the best stoner/doom releases of the year. The still-new Welsh act mixed a classic Sabbath and Kyuss infused heaviness with an occult leaning and a pinch of dark psychedelia to create an album that sounded like something you’d always known, yet still wielded a world of huge sounding doomy metal riffs in such a way that the material still felt genuinely thrilling. Rather wisely, the band have largely chosen to stick to a similar formula for their 2026 follow up, ‘Death Comes Twice’, a collection of intense and heavy bangers that reinforces the idea that Goat Major are one of the UK’s best up-and-coming metal acts at the time of release.
It’s approximately 8pm on a Friday night in Ramsgate. There don’t seem to be as many people milling around outside the Music Hall as usual. This seems odd given that, tonight, The Fierce And The Dead have sold out the venue on their second visit to the town. From the car park opposite, the sounds of a nearby pub cranking out ‘Up Where We Belong’ by Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes at a ridiculous volume with the sounds of avant garde sax from the Music Hall bleeding through – courtesy of the night’s supporting artist, Terry Edwards – creates a somewhat surreal experience.