5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #184

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week is a feature I run on Young Ears, Fresh Perspective on Sundays/early hours of Monday morning where I pick out 5 tunes that I think are notable and tell you a bit about them. The point is to give you some rocking music to help you deal with your weekday blues. You can either listen to one each day, listen to them all at once, or any other combination that you feel. As long as you can get through the week without the man getting you down, that's all I care about. Without further ado, here are the 5 tracks I've picked out for this week:

1. Evil, by The Black Keys

I came across this track earlier today and loved the crap out of it. I feel like a bad Black Keys fan for not knowing about it sooner. It was a bonus track on the Japanese version of their 2003 sophomore album Thickfreakness. It definitely has a real John Lee Hooker vibe to it, but with the dirty, lo-fi, rock n' roll feel of the Black Keys. This definitely should be put on ALL future releases of the album, in my opinion.

2. Born Again (unmixed), by Black Sabbath

If you didn't catch my Throwback Thursday blog last week, I discovered the unmixed versions of the tracks from Black Sabbath's infamous 1983 album Born Again. This was the one album where Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan fronted the band. It is such a unique album, for sure. The final release had muddy, muffled production quality, which horrified the band. While it still has its charms, finding the unmixed versions of the tracks is a whole different experience.

3. One Last Soul, by Black Country Communion

I didn't really care all that much for this song the first several times I heard it, but over time it has somehow grown on me. The peculiar vocal harmonies and the grooving riffs definitely do it for me. I'm glad that Black Country Communion is back up and running again. When they broke up in 2013, I was completely bummed. They got back together not too long ago and put out a pretty good album, so hopefully I get to see them live.

4. Soulcreek, by Black Stone Cherry

This was a song a former band mate wanted us to cover way back in the day, but we never got around to it. Kind of a shame though, because this song definitely has some soul and power to it. It rocks, grooves, and has an overall atmosphere of down by the river, no frills, down to Earth fun to it. At the same time though, it doesn't sound like every over-produced "country" song you hear on the radio these days. We definitely need more stuff like this.

5. Remedy, by The Black Crowes

This song is an absolute classic. If you haven't heard it at least once by now, you have been living under a rock - or at least have no access to terrestrial radio. It has everything: rocking guitars, a beat you can move to, soulful harmonies, powerful lead vocals, and swagger. Not swag, swagger. The Black Crowes really knew how to kick a groove with some real musical layering back in the day. Shame they broke up.