There’s little variation in sound over the 11 tracks, but bucketloads of yearning, wistful emotion that is elegant and uplifting, with just a touch of schmaltz.

Thanks to Mark Lambert’s overly ostentatious and frequently intrusive production, Russell occasionally sounds lost within his own material.

The Groovies are indeed back, still majestic, supernatural and magnificently defiant, and as a result the rock‘n’roll world feels back on its axis.

Manson’s nihilistic take on 2017 is interwoven with glimpses of personal darkness, wrapped up in mutually constrictive and damaging relationships on epic dirge Blood Honey and the closing Threats Of Romance, ordering a partner to do his murderous bidding on the Muse disco blues Kill4Me, and mourning the loss of his father on the seven-minute centrepiece Saturnalia. But even here there’s a renewed crackle to Manson’s attack--a viper regaining its bite.

The record is rivenwith angst, strife and remonstration. Which makes it sound like a knotty proposition. But actually it’s quite the opposite.

The song titles may be a little lacking this time round (although The Sordid Soliloquy Of Sawborg Destructo makes up for it), but The Blood of Gods is more of the same monstrous bilge.

This 1986 Morrissey-Marr career peak proves enduringly rich and rewarding in its punchy, remastered, expanded form.

All told, this is a finely detailed and lovingly curated tribute to one of the true greats.

The truth is that Carry Fire is about as good an album as we could reasonably expect from him in 2017.

Hiring QOTSA producer Eric Valentine has given their bluesy bluster a hint of Josh Homme’s desert Bowie sleaze on tracks like Never Swim Alone, Statues, Caught Up and Moonlight. ... There’s still space for the weird bits, though.

Lady Gaga adds majestic soul diva clout to Find Yourself, Nelson proves to be a sterling guitarist and the whole thing is hellacious, meaning good.

Independence Day is normal for Neil: he tests the climate and the atmospherics are depressing. Terrorise Me, a response to the Bataclan outrage, is the key piece. The rest is no faffing and easy listening.

Thoroughly anti-social and wonderfully obnoxious throughout, this is kick-arse psych’n’roll as it should be.

Opener Up All Night moves through the formulaic pop gears as smoothly as Don Henley cruising along the Pacific Coast Highway, while Holding On is a slickly realised mid-tempo foot tapper. However, shorn of the novelty factor, such middle-of-the-road material remains better suited to balmy summer nights and drivetime radio than to repeated home listening.

Seething with anxiety and frontman Jesse Lacey’s trademark sarcastic self‑flagellation, and with a gorgeous production that gives the music space to breathe, it’s an emotional, intelligent work of grace and beauty.

Unlike the mostly acoustic-led Lighthouse, Sky Trails finds him in full band mode, engaging in a nuanced blend of folk, soul and jazz that echoes vintage triumphs like Guinnevere and Déjà Vu.

This is feeble stuff, more Benny Hill than Russell Brand. When they hit the target, The Darkness are untouchable, but too much of Pinewood Smile feels like a half-hearted wank when it should have been a mighty ear-shafting.

None of this is especially groundbreaking or radical, but the sound of a veteran in fine voice, making music with his pals (McGuinn and David Crosby are also along for the ride), is very persuasive indeed.

All the albums, and the odds-and-sods presented on this 11-CD collection are remastered, but only Lodger, in a move approved by Bowie before his death, is given a Tony Visconti 2017 remix. This new mix illuminates the giddy mood of experimentalism abroad, a contrast to the intensity of its precursor’s, and a band fresh from the tour captured on the exemplary Stage (also here), in fine, resourceful fettle.

With a dash of peacenik politics the heritage is clear, but Dhani does more than enough to establish his own terrain.

The overall result is both sparse yet overflowing, in a fashion in keeping with the band’s reputation.

Thomas might have this new album down as the James Gang teaming up with Tangerine Dream, but PU exist in a world their own, one that bears only passing resemblance to reality.

It’s not all hits--there’s the borderline derivative glam-metal of Two Birds, and the wholly less arresting pop-punk of Side Effects--but this is loud, proficient punk rock which should leave even the most curmudgeonly listener fist-punching with glee.

There’s little ground they haven’t covered before, whether that’s the old school Steve Harris gallop of The Seductiveness Of Decay or the choral interlude of Achingly Beautiful, but no one does it quite like them.

His words and sentiments are left deliberately smudged and indefinite in places; sardonic Dylan phrasing sticks to some words, double-tracked Lennon wails on others.

There’s a demo version of The Ramones’ Rockaway Beach included here, which is as scratchy and worn as you might imagine and, remarkably, lacks any of that patented, and much missed, Motörhead kick. Much better is their gnarly version of Metallica’s Whiplash; if you didn’t know any better you’d swear it was one of their own. Ditto Twisted Sister’s Shoot ‘Em Down.

You can hear it in the creepy, lovelorn surrealism of Filter Me Through You’s hazy dream-pop. Then the eleven minute title track, with its ruefully fated protagonist, spidery keyboards, jaggedly interlocked parts and mantric end, proves decisively that this Dream isn’t over.

This white-hot furnace of a black-rock milestone shows Living Colour more scathingly relevant (and desperately needed) than ever.