This week’s five pulled in completely different directions, which is probably why I kept circling back to them. The Medicine Dolls brought the sleaze and the hook, Mad God slowed everything down without losing the pulse, Moondaygun hit with groove, punch and a nasty streak of their own, Tinariwen sounded as rooted and sharp as ever, and Lomor closed the loop with tension, speed and old-school thrash instinct.
You’ll find all five in the official AFRICA.ROCKS Spotify playlist. Save it to your favourites, because I keep it updated constantly.
The Medicine Dolls “Tip The Waitress”
(Single / Just Music, 2026)
I had not seen this much ass in a music video since Scooter’s “Hello! (Good To Be Back)”, and that must have been around 2005. That does not mean I spent the next twenty years ignoring videos. I know Mastodon had one somewhere along the way with a similar kind of swing to it. I just started paying far more attention to the songs, mostly because videos rarely added much.
With “Tip The Waitress”, the song came first (no pun intended). I liked the groove of it, the bite in the playing, and the way it leans into that sleazy hard rock look people usually connect with Mötley Crüe while sounding tighter than that comparison usually promises. The track moves properly. It has weight, it has swing, and the female vocal works against the lead in a way that gives the chorus exactly what it needs.
Then I watched the video. And yes, there is a lot of ass in it. Fair enough. It suits the whole thing. Still, the reason to stick with “Tip The Waitress” is the song itself, because that part really delivers. The video is absolutely NSFW, unless you work somewhere people casually walk around with their ass out.
Mad God “An Age of Ash”
(An Age of Ash / Mongrel Records, 2026)
Mad God have just put out the title track from their upcoming album An Age of Ash, with the full record set for 27 March. There are two songs up on Bandcamp right now, and this is the one I kept going back to. “Left to Rot” hits faster, but “An Age of Ash” sinks in a different way. It does not rush to make its point. It just settles into that slow pull and lets the song build from there.
What got me was how alive it feels. The riff is heavy, sure, but the song has space in it, and Mad God know how to use that space well. It drags its feet in the right way, opens up a little, then drops back into the weight. A lot of bands slow everything down and end up sounding half-asleep. This does not. “An Age of Ash” keeps breathing the whole way through, and that is why it stayed with me.
Moondaygun “Urges”
(Single / Independent, 2026)
You can argue with me all you want, but I stand by this one: Chimaira were the best metal band of that era. Fine, maybe not the absolute best-best, because the debut never hit with the same force and never fully convinced me. But from The Impossibility of Reason through the self-titled record, Resurrection, The Infection and The Age of Hell, they gave that period of heavy music everything it needed and then some. That run still holds up, and “Urges” by Cape Town’s Moondaygun took me straight back there. It has that same stomp and that same punch, then throws in a Meshuggah-style groove without turning into a copy of either band. Underneath it, you can hear the way Moondaygun move between alternative metal, metalcore and deathcore, while still sounding like themselves.
There is another reason this one stood out to me. Moondaygun have only been putting music out since 2022, with singles like “Loot”, “Meat Juice”, “DORMAR”, “Ingrate” and now “Urges”, so this is still a post-Covid band building its catalogue piece by piece. “Urges” sounds like a big step in that run. For a newer South African band, that goes a long way. This feels like the kind of weight the local scene can use right now, and I have a feeling people have been waiting for a band like this whether they knew it or not.
Tinariwen “Erghad Afewo”
(Hoggar / Wedge, 2026)
Tinariwen’s tenth album Hoggar is out now, but “Erghad Afewo” is the track I would send people to first. It has that steady Tinariwen pull to it, but there is a sting in this one. Ibrahim Ag Alhabib wrote it about division inside Tuareg society and the people who sided with the enemy, and you can feel that tension sitting inside the song. The new animated video gets that across well too, following two Tuareg children growing up with conflict and censorship around them before music becomes their way through it.
What I like about “Erghad Afewo” is that it carries a lot without sounding weighed down by it. Tinariwen have been at this too long to force anything. The song moves with that familiar communal sway, but there is anger in it, memory in it, and a hard look inward as well. Recorded in Tamanrasset with younger Tuareg musicians around it, the song does not feel distant or reflective. Tinariwen still sound like they are speaking from inside that reality.
Lomor “Panzram”
(Sabouk Rouge / Rockshot Records, 2026)
Lomor are from Réunion Island, and “Panzram” was one of the two singles that led into this year’s Sabouk Rouge. The second it kicked in, I went straight to Slayer, but more in that 1980s sense of menace than in pure velocity. The song opens with that calm-before-the-storm feel, only it is not really calm at all. There is a dense atmosphere hanging over it, like the band are holding something back on purpose, letting the tension build before they finally let it rip. Then the second half comes in and that is where the knife really goes in. But because Lomor take their time getting there, the payoff lands harder.
What keeps it from turning into cosplay is that Lomor do have their own thing going on, and the song never feels trapped in pure retro worship. It is tight, nasty, and direct, but still leaves enough room for the band to sound like themselves instead of a checklist of references. “Panzram” is one of those tracks that gets in, does the job, and gets out without wasting a second.
