John Primer channels his inner Mud convincingly, but you’ll be peering past him at the A-list band.

That Repentless is coherent and persuasively powerful is a tribute to the identity of the band.

Berlin is Kadavar 2.0; cleaner, more inventive production, broader palette (although still 70s-centred), stratospheric energy.

Ironically, these more daring forays emphasise the inoffensive blandness of some of the other tracks, but if the future holds more similarly brave experimentation then ZBB are on a fascinating career trajectory.

A clutch of fine torch songs (Iceman, Dead For Love, the title track) save the day, suaveness replacing the sordid sweat of old. Their youth was doomed, but their adulthood shows promise.

What The World Needs Now... continues where 2012’s This Is PiL left off.

Fourth album The Night Creeper is their most convincing statement yet, a buzzing set of doomy psych-rock songs with great hooks and punishing riffs.

Crosseyed Heart actually delivers.

Nobody will pretend this album is among the most inventive you’ll hear in 2015. But Buckcherry just wanna pump up the volume and get the groin shifting. And they do it well enough to put some zest in the tank.

The Book Of Souls will doubtless be celebrated most for its epics, and if you thought Maiden had pulled out all the stops in the past, you may need to strap yourself in and say a quick prayer to Eddie this time round.

You could spend hours ticking off the references (which obviously extend beyond Abbey Road), but what gives the album its identity is their own sense of style.

Mayall’s own songs are self-reflective, particularly Ain’t No Guarantees and the title track. And while his voice increasingly betrays his age his Hammond and piano playing has lost none of its vigour.

Occupational hazards aside however, this is certainly the band’s strongest in recent memory, and what it might lack in edge or novelty is well countered by craft and assurance.

Whichever level you enjoy it on, this folkie’s volte-face is less ‘Judas’, more ‘genius’.

From the manically undistinguished soloing of The Tempter Push to the leaden progressions of Walk Alone, it is uniquely generic, extraordinarily ordinary.

[A] meaty pop debut album.

The songs on this follow-up to 2013’s Dig Thy Savage Soul rock harder than before while retaining the garage signature of ex-Lyres guitarist Peter Greenberg.

Meliora is easily the sextet’s finest outing to date, a meticulously executed, artful collection of black-souled retro doom-pop, as heavy as Metallica, as melodically sophisticated as ABBA.

Debut album Dark Black Makeup is a thrilling half-hour of punk rock with a small ‘p’ but a big UNK!--hooky, heavy and furious in all the right places.

Disturbed are back, and they’re on top form.

Occasionally, as on Fire Storm Hotel, with its shades of an 80s hair metal anthem, he sounds at once energised and enfeebled and you find yourself willing him to reach the velocity of yore. But most of the time, you could play these tracks to an alien and they would struggle to tell them apart from Motörhead’s 90s, or even 70s, work.

[The Fratellis] still lack an identity beyond the decent Glaswegian doggedness that has got them this far.

Old ground, yes, but viewed through bright, fresh eyes. You want the real vintage rock’n’soul deal? Look this way, and then make sure you catch them live.

A 70s classic rock party, then, but one with a few new guests.

He decided to “rock out” at every subsequent opportunity, so that mass audiences understood and acknowledged the founding role of bluesmen in rock. This album might be considered a further step in that direction.

Weird, beautiful music to get lost in space--or at least a hammock--to.

If there’s a disappointment about Genexus it’s that it only really delivers to hardened FF fans, that it’s essentially more of the same winning formula.

Capped by the sublime You Trip Me Up, even in 2014 Psychocandy was a visceral burn around the very edge of listenability.

1976’s Presence was both the nearest Zeppelin ever got to recreating their live power in a studio setting, and the album that bears closest inspection and repeated listening when the familiarity of earlier high spots has been exhausted.

Listening to the earlier mixes accompanying 1979’s In Through The Out Door (7/10) is to be transported to an alternative universe where songs named Blot, The Epic and The Hook (I’m Gonna Crawl, Carouselambra and All My Love respectively) jostle with a scruffier, rambunctious Hot Dog and a sparser In The Evening, the drone intro truncated and Jones’s synths high in the mix.

Coda itself a contractual hotchpotch of career-spanning outtakes, is the only reissue given the three-disc treatment, with a total of 15 extras as disparate as the album itself.

A classical version of a rock album only reveals how tonally conservative rock is (formally, Quadrophenia’s compositions would have sounded hidebound in the late 19th century), while at the same time revealing classical music’s inability to convey the electric volatility and the spine-tingling, physical frisson that’s unique to rock.

As a compendium of rock styles, it’s hard to beat--maybe that’s what they mean by Little Victories. But it’s all quite characterless.

Wild, weird and wonderful, Dark Matter/Dark Energy is a lysergic punk triumph.

With Parker’s voice haloed in reverb, some of it sounds great, especially eight-minute epic Let It Happen and the gorgeous ’Cause I’m A Man. But quite what his regular audience will make of this change in direction is another matter entirely.

A rather fine rock record indeed.

Songhoy Blues bring a joyful defiance to Music In Exile that transcends the language barrier.

Here, White Manna have created grown-up lullabies of the most primal kind.

Bookended by the glorious, galloping sludge-fest, Bridgeburner and the Dio-era, Sabbath-indebted doom-laden title track, the likes of Soft Spot In My Skull and the pummelling 1000 Mile Stare prove that this is much more than a vanity project and it’s as thrilling as anything they’ve put their names to in the past.

Taken overall, it does gather moss, but that’s to be expected from a man of his vintage.

The best moments here find Thompson more restrained, particularly the sinuous, fingerpicked beauty of Beatnik Walking and the rueful, all-acoustic Josephine.

While nothing quite matches the brutalist stomps of your youth, there’s a savage intensity at work here.

There’s a warm, fuzzy familiarity to Goatsnake’s doomy, bluesy sound, with Stahl’s stirring, soulful vocals always elevating these southern gothic rumbles above the mundane, not least on the striking and rather beautiful seven-minute closer A Killing Blues.

If you fancy being barked at by a grizzled campaigner about pesticides and sea pollution over three-chord sludge and ragged-glorious guitars, then you’ll love what Young and co cook up here. If not, stick to Harvest.

Her heart is laid bare in a manner that just manages to avoid becoming cloying.

Though the record’s real strength is the deft vocal interplay between Elsenburg and Jana Carpenter, who imbues things with a new sense of depth and, on Chasing Horses and the achingly lovely Tyrekickers, a nuanced sensitivity.

They’re a light-footed prospect, made still more intriguing by Erika Wennerstrom’s curiously detached vocal.

This is certainly a dead weird album; it may improve with time.

While there’s plenty of self-indulgent noodling (God Is In The Rhythm; the final section of Infinite Rise) compensation comes with their adventurous spirit.

Another adequate but inessential album.

A brilliant record, combining as it does the herky-jerky, febrile near-hysterical wit of Sparks with that of Franz Ferdinand.

A bit of filler, but mainly killer.

The Darkness’ return to form is a welcome surprise in these apocalyptically drab times.

Great in parts, but flat and clumsy in others, Bellamy’s bid to become more serious appears to have stunted what he does best, which is operatic excess fuelled by volcanic emotion.

Resolute if hardly revolutionary form. [Jun 2015, p.96]

A slick, punchy production gives some pop momentum to Justin Sane's vocals, but it's when the songs are carried by his guitar that American Spring sounds ready to bloom. [Jun 2015, p.92]

The Minus 5 remain a star-heavy Trojan horse for McCaughey's songwriting. [Jun 2015, p.97]

At last, a Mew album as essential as it is deeply odd. [Jun 2015, p.97]

There is skill on display, but the album is unlikely to progress beyond background music. [Jun 2015, p.93]

His seventh album is another celebration of the simple things in life. [Jun 2015, p.93]

Walks For Motorists cascades, scalds, oozes ectoplasmically and revisits the rusting futures of rock past. [Jun 2015, p.92]

When it's good, it's very good. [Jun 2015, p.91]

The band's sixth album is another uneven mix, but with enough fresh twists and smart cameos to save it from redundancy. [Jun 2015, p.90]

One for those who like some songwriting substance with their hellbound gargling. [Jun 2015, p.95]

Opener Finally Free is the instant crowd pleaser, but slow-burners Diamond Girl and Pink Snow find them in ambitious new album rock territory. [Jun 2015, p.89]

A group at ease with both their instruments and each other, showing no signs of rust or sclerosis despite their long lay-off. [Jun 2015, p.88]

The presence of old Jam oppo Steve Brookes on slide guitar during a pop-art inspired In The Car, meanwhile, only adds to the sense of Weller returning to what he knows best. [Jun 2015, p.94]

It's an astonishing, tour-de-force performance, ferocious and committed and dripping with confidence. [Jun 2015, p.90]

A curious curt selection with no obvious crowd-pleasers, but doubtless KC fans will rise to the challenge. [May 2015, p.107]

Amid all this doom, Therapy? sound reborn, utterly at ease with a sound they largely abandoned 20 years back. [May 2015, p.106]

At just 39 minutes, they've packed so much into this entirely mad record, you'll be left happily exhausted by the end of it. [May 2015, p.103]

The result is a direct, delicious assortment. [May 2015, p.104]

You'll find much to love on Global. [May 2015, p.102]

Watford's finest are still very much the real deal. [May 2015, p.103]

This fine album could have been recorded at any time in the past 60 years, yet also could only have been recorded by this particular man at this particular stage of his career. [May 2015, p.107]

As a set of songs it works fine. [May 2015, p.105]

Only the plodding White Lightning and an unadventurous 20th century Boy drag, but they're easily outweighed by the new-wave buzz of Youth Quake and Parachute's godlike glam Beatles chorus. [May 2015, p.102]

Little has changed in the schlocky-horror junk-shop aesthetic.... However, the polished and emotive power-pop chuggers She's The Bad One and Sorry About Tomorrow show more midlife maturity. [May 2015, p.103]

A rather predictable record. [May 2015, p.107]

Their story is one of the great oversights of rock'n'roll and it's a joy to see it curated with such care. [Apr 2015, p.106]

Knopfler's slide into the cosy vale of rootsy retro is clearly irreversible, but he certainly makes trad a luxurious place to get pampered for an hour. [Apr 2015, p.97]

It's on those spiritual slowies that this crew rakes the biggest steps to creating the 21st-century southern masterpiece they are obviously capable of. [Mar 2015, p.94]

Lovers of rock both classic and current will be blown away. [Apr 2015, p.94]

Great riffs, great rides, great album. [Apr 2015, p.101]

They find the sweet spot between Dinosaur Jr's nagging noise and The Posies' woozy power-pop charm. [Apr 2015, p.101]

While the album lacks the killer punch of a big hit single, it's full of charm and depth, making it a rare treat indeed. [Apr 2015, p.100]

It's an insider's wink, an unchallenging throwback to a more challenging time. [Apr 2015, p.100]

Garwood sounds like he's found whatever he's been blindly searching for. [Apr 2015, p.99]

It's hard to resist. [Apr 2015, p.99]

A fine tribute to a timeless songwriter of our times. [Apr 2015, p.95]

Decidedly queasy listening throughout. [Apr 2015, p.98]

It's rock'n'roll for aging urchins who don't know how to quit. [Apr 2015, p.98]

The basic country sounds frame a compelling singer. [Apr 2015, p.97]

Marred only slightly by a couple of scrappy tunes, the album feels like a life-affirming reminder of anarchist Emma Goldman's celebrated maxim that the only worthwhile revolution is one you can dance to. [Apr 2015, p.96]

It's a joy to discover that not only is he refusing to mellow with age, but also the output from this trio is so heavy. [Apr 2015, p.95]

It's to Gill's credit that the band have retained their venom, spitting out terse rhythms and thick squirts of electronica. [Apr 2015, p.95]

A highly more-ish record with real soul and class. [Mar 2015, p.88]

The best moments aren't the straightforward boogie tunes--some of the album sounds like a backwater George Thorogood--but on the numbers where other influences creep in. [Mar 2015, p.93]