Jazz standard Lullaby Of The Leaves begins in husky torch song mode, but gains interest with a brassy Bonamassa guitar solo, like a Bond theme played past midnight in a Chicago dive. When these rockers go reggae for Addicted, though, it is, as usual, a step too far.

Unfeigned and irresistible.

Locating the sweet spot where spontaneity and polish meet, Widdershins swings in all the right directions.

Fallon’s preoccupation with emotive storytelling and heartland rock remains, occasionally flying a little too close to a musical rehashing than being the modern reinvention he’s aiming for.

Always Ascending is a class act, polished, honed, several cuts above the mewling herd. New guitarist or not, Franz Ferdinand abide.

The synth-heavy The Signal & The Noise shows they can still quest when the mood takes them, but overall the album plays to Simple Minds’ many strengths.

Frankly, your head spins. Unpick it all, though, this is one of the most probing and pioneering avant-retro-pop albums of the age. And when Furman swerves from his Seraphiel & Louise narrative to discuss his issues with religion, coming out and the rise of the Far Right on the album’s jauntier ditties, it’s one of the most provocative too.

All in, it’s superior stuff, brimming with self-effacement and fun that belies the quality and seriousness from which it’s constructed.

Furious first single Cast The First Stone sets the pace for an album that’s utterly relentless in its intensity. There are the now-expected acoustic interludes so you can catch your breath here and there, but as face-melters like Wolf Named Crow and Forgive Me will attest to, this is Corrosion Of Conformity with their amps and their snarls turned up to 11. Thank Christ.

It’s a beautifully compiled set that shows what was really going on in 1967 and how subsequent years translated the aftershock. The guitars rock like a motherfucker throughout.

It feels retro, a description you can bet Flat Worms would be proud of.

Diggin’ A Hole is scratchy blues; Almost Always could have graced Harvest Moon; Stand Tall and Children Of Destiny are earworms; but if you want beauty, you’ve got it on Carnival, once the cackling stops. Neil Young is reborn, yet again.

Electric Eye elevate to captivate, they have the power to seduce a soul ascendent. With a post-Roses spin on a 60s soundtrack vibe here, a celestial sitar there, the succulent fruits of this particular tree are as seductive as Eve’s apples.

As a stand-alone album, it’s a trip. Where it fits in Dwyer’s canon is another kettle of bananas entirely.

This is a set of unlistenable, wigged-out, repetitive, directionless grooves in the main, but we love ’em anyway.

The lyrics are packed with so many trite clichés that you can’t help but wince, whether he’s wishing for world peace on Make Love Not War (which manages to make room for the Trump-supporting Love to thank the USA ‘and all the folks protecting us very day’), dredging up seafaring love metaphors on Too Cruel or fashioning sappy eco ballads like Only One Earth.

Expressive, feral, soulful, sensual, explosive… On Air? On fire, more like.

This is a brilliant time-stamp of a band on the cusp of greatness. In this all-encompassing collection, Metallica have actually managed to improve on perfection.

The post-hardcore foundations are here, complete with drama-fuelled, singalong choruses, but what The Used have built upon them opens up a new world of creative opportunities for them.

A handful of tracks shoot for the anthemic uplift of vintage U2, but fall short. The only real left-field beauty here is Love Is All We Have Left, a token reminder of the Dublin quartet’s shimmering ambient avant-rock period.

Occasional bursts of fierce, psychotic guitar evoke the spirit of punk-rock alter ego, Rikki Nadir. Otherwise it’s voice and piano and very little else. The intimacy is at times so intense it’s almost frightening. It is, to borrow the title of a VdGG song, ’eavy mate. There are some clever subplots too, Hammill being at the very top of his lyrical game.

A handful of solo piano interludes also summon inescapable echoes of Spinal Tap’s Lick My Love Pump. Overall, though, Synthesis feels like a successful experiment.

Neither a work of nostalgia nor a move away from the blueprint that made them so special in the first place, this album demonstrates that artistic quality cannot be confined to a specific place in time.

If you compare this to past triumphs like Come My Fanatics and Dopethrone--albums that pushed doom metal into heavier and more joyously drug-addled territory than ever before--Wizard Bloody Wizard falls a spliff or two short of the mark.

Automatic impresses in its scope and daring. Certainly, the drone-like Drive was a surprise choice for first single and opening cut, as if R.E.M were wilfully avoiding the rock god game.

Originally rejected by Reprise Records executives as being nothing more than a bunch of demos, the entire set is spun with some strange, surreal and beautiful magic.

American Fall is their eleventh studio album since the band formed in 1996, and there’s no compromise, no backing down. The anger keeps churning, the hooks keep building. ... It’s sometimes reminiscent of Green Day, but none the worse for that.

Bootsy shines brightest when the Big Daddy Kanes pipe down and he gets to consider mortality on the poignant Heaven Yes, pay tribute to fallen P-Funk comrade Bernie Worrell on A Salute To Bernie, or stretch out on the uncut funk he does best, bolstered by guitarist Eric Gales and veteran Funkadelic drummer Dennis Chambers on Come Back Bootsy.