High Desert Queen, courtesy Stacey Lovett.

This week we have soul from Casii Stephan, old-school Southern rock from Little Feat, hard rock by High Desert Queen, Kate Clover and The Idoru, and an outside-the-box history lesson by Kev Bev.

Casii Stephan, “Can’t Handle Me” — It’s incredibly hard to find good new soul music, let alone some with a solid funk vibe, which is why I was thrilled to hear this one by Casii Stephan. In some ways, “Can’t Handle Me” is a throwback. But it doesn’t sound old at all, so that doesn’t seem like a fair assessment. What it is, however, is great.

High Desert Queen, “Ancient Aliens” — The TV show “Ancient Aliens” is a horrible example of passive racism; implying that every great work by a non-European culture is obviously impossible without the help of aliens, while European monuments are just due to human ingenuity. That’s gross. This song is, mercifully, not that. The video is a parody of the Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David classic “They Live” and the song itself is wonderfully heavy, like if White Zombie did grunge.

Kate Clover, “Like a Domino” — As rock music gets less fashionable, either because of changing tastes or because young people can’t afford instruments and rehearsal space and time to practice anymore due to our profoundly broken economy, I’ve become more and more of an evangelist for the good stuff coming out. Kate Clover definitely makes good stuff. I’m also strongly in favor of following the punk tradition of twisting the music of the early ’60s. Great all around.

The Idoru, “This Ship Will Sail” — When I pick Tuesday Tracks, you can usually count on the list including a metal song, and a song that could have come from a mid-’00s video game soundtrack. That’s not on purpose. I just like that music. “This Ship Will Sail” by The Idoru specifically strikes me as something from “Madden NFL 2005.” I will not be taking further questions because I do not have answers.

Little Feat, “You’ll Be Mine” — When I saw a new song by Little Feat, I did a double take, but they are in fact the great Southern rock band from the ’70s and ’80s. It’s their first album since 2012, but this is a genre that gets better as the performers age, and “You’ll Be Mine” is proof of that. They seem to get better every time they come back from some time off; their first No. 1 song, “Hate to Lose Your Lovin,'” came after a nine-year hiatus in the ’80s, after all.

Kev Bev, “History Books” — Austin’s Kev Bev, which is the name of both the band and the nickname of frontman Kevin Collins, wrote “History Books” as a response to modern book bannings and a documentary on the 1921 Tulsa massacre. It’s an important topic and noble cause, but that doesn’t mean as much if the song isn’t good. Fortunately, the song is great! Love to see great music with a great message.

Danny’s pick: With a lot of fantastic contenders, I had to go with High Desert Queen and “Ancient Aliens.” I love grunge, I love hard rock and I love “They Live,” so it was the obvious call. But Kev Bev is right up there.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis at @bayareadata.press on BlueSky.