SoundBites: Black Mountain, Openside, Anna Coddington

Anna Coddington

Hard rocking Canadians Black Mountain are heading our way for their first New Zealand gig.

The five-piece combine a classic rock sound with psychedelia, with obvious influences Led Zeppelin (hey, their fourth album is even called IV) and the Velvet Underground.

Pitchfork says IV takes everything the band has ever done - heavy riffs, prog ambitions and pop smarts, and rolls it up into an "alternate universe version of classic rock history".

Black Mountain play Auckland's Tuning Fork on September 30 and Wellington's Bodega on October 1.

Tickets on sale this week from Ticketmaster and Under the Radar respectively.

Aucklanders Openside have released a new single.

Letting It Out was mixed in LA by Billy Bush, who's worked with The Naked & Famous and Tegan & Sara, and mastered by Joe LaPorta, who's worked with Imagine Dragon and Foo Fighters.

The pop rockers have opened for Twenty One Pilots at their Auckland gig, and have found fans online with Taylor Swift and Major Lazer covers.

Meanwhile, Kiwi singer Anna Coddington has followed up her song Release Me with Lantern as she continues work on her third album Luck/Time, due in October.

Coddington says the song deals with reclaiming your identity "and believing that you are a glorious lantern even if most of the time no one can tell because it's usually daytime when they see you".

And Australian-South African singer Troye Sivan has released a new version of his single Wild, featuring fellow YouTube star Alessia Cara.

Revisit a classic
Led Zeppelin IV is actually an untitled album, though of course it helps to have something to refer to when someone wants to know where to find Stairway to Heaven.

The 1971 release is one of the top 10 best selling albums in the world - by the time it was reissued two years ago it had sold more than 37 million copies.

As well as the iconic Stairway, the album features Black Dog, Misty Mountain Hop and Rock And Roll.