@Archisha Babbar

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Sigma

Discover new music from artists we think you'll like. Refreshed every Friday.

With their unhinged fusion of blues, punk and psychedelic pop, Kentucky's Cage the Elephant are poster children for a new era of garage rock. They swaggered onto the scene in 2008 with a self-titled debut album that got its twang from the White Stripes, its funk from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and its vocal style from Beck. On later albums like 2013's GRAMMY®-nominated Melophobia, they amped up the intensity while opening up their sound, balancing '60s soul influences with scraps of '90s alt-rock, all delivered with a knowing wink.

Only 16 when he founded Sheffield, England’s Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner swiftly established himself as a songwriter of uncommon wisdom and wit. That one-two punch helped make 2006’s <i>Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not</i> the fastest-selling debut album in UK history, armed with a scuffed earworm single in “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”. On 2009’s <i>Humbug</i> they sought riff-thickening advice from Queens of the Stone Age leader Josh Homme—see the brooding menace of “Crying Lightning"—while 2013’s <i>AM</i> cracked the US Top 10 (and later Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list) with sing-along stompers naturally suited to festivals. Once they became one of the world’s biggest rock bands, the Monkeys proved they could also be among its most adventurous, with Turner crooning over darkly funky licks and intentionally drowsy arrangements on tracks like 2018’s “Four Out of Five” and 2022’s “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball”. Whatever the backdrop, Turner’s pen proves no less pointed as he settles confidently into middle age.

Alt-rock icons Red Hot Chili Peppers embody all that is sunny and seedy about LA. The band—originally vocalist Anthony Kiedis, bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary, guitarist Hillel Slovak and drummer Jack Irons—baked that dichotomy into their sound upon forming in 1982. Fusing Black Flag’s punk and Parliament’s funk, RHCP combined wild bass-slapping and absurdist humour, making them college radio’s court jesters throughout the ’80s. Slovak’s death and Irons’ exit forever altered the band’s DNA, but the arrival of drummer Chad Smith and guitarist John Frusciante helped breathe new energy into 1989’s hard-rocking <i>Mother’s Milk</i>, particularly on the caffeinated “Knock Me Down” and a cover of Stevie Wonder's “Higher Ground”. 1991’s <i>Blood Sugar Sex Magik</i> revealed the melancholic nuances of Flea’s and Frusciante’s playing, providing Kiedis with an emotional palette for the epic ballads “Under the Bridge” and “Breaking the Girl”. 1999’s <i>Californication</i> twisted the band’s funk-rock template into a sobering, sophisticated collection of cautionary tales, led by “Scar Tissue” and the title track. RHCP retained a chart-topping, festival-headlining reign well into the 21st century, including releasing two albums in 2022, <i>Unlimited Love</i> and <i>Return of the Dream Canteen</i>, which yielded “Black Summer” and “Tippa My Tongue”, respectively.