1. Black Tide - "Shockwave"
It's the return of rock! All you rockers out there will be very pleased with this week’s free track from Black Tide. It’s all here: classic vocals, raging guitars, and bad attitudes. It hearkens back to the days when Guns N’ Roses were roaming the streets, all bad-ass. But with slightly more metal influences. Funny story: you’d never guess from listening to this track at how young the band members are.

2. Monareta - "Llama"
I was totally digging this track from Monareta, a South American duo. It’s very hip, boppy reggae with some random Spanish vocals, electronic effects, and the occasional jazzy horn sample. Then, somewhere in the middle of the track, something bad started happening.

It sounded as if they added someone scraping an electronic washboard to their wall of sound. I know, it sounds like that would be cute and folksy, but it started buzzing my speakers so badly I thought something was wrong with my computer.

I’d recommend downloading it and skipping the last two minutes. The song is too long anyway.

3. Angie Mattson - "Thank You"
“Thank You” is a nice, if-unremarkable track from Angie Mattson. Angie has a standard-issue smoky voice, and apparently a standard-issue grateful heart. It’s the kind of track that gets tossed as a P.S. onto the end of an album. ‘Thank You’ isn’t really a showcase for her songwriting skills, and the instrumentals trap her between country and jazz genres, which is a misrepresentation of her work. This is all too bad, because this is probably the biggest exposure Angie will see for a while, and she actually has some pretty good stuff.

I can think of worse things to listen to as you’re trying to fall asleep, so it’s worth picking up for that, if nothing else.