Punk can be a relative term, especially when applied to California. In comparison to The Pogues, Flogging Molly sound more like The Nolans. In fact, the Saw Doctors are nearer the mark. But all their rousing expat energy, best heard on The Hand Of John L Sullivan, can’t disguise a controlled finesse.

hile its takes on classic swing, psych country and postpunk pop are understandably fragile and lacking wallop--an inevitable consequence of age and getting your kids in your backing band--How The West Was Won is shot through with a wonderfully wry reinvigoration.

Melvins have made exactly the album they wanted to. The result? This is one for dedicated followers only.

All three [previously unreleased tracks] are worthy additions to the Radiohead canon, enhancing and enriching an all time classic album rather than diluting it.

If you’re a fan of the more raucous, high-octane twang-stompers this band are best known for, you might find this a strangely sedate, mid-tempo affair.

Witness a contemporary twist on the classic R&B revival. Hallelujah.

They’re aiming for a rockier sound--Walking The Wire has a guitar solo that could conceivably be influenced by U2 if you stick your head under a pillow before hitting play – but, as one listen to opener I Don’t Know Why amply demonstrates, it just comes off like Michael Bolton dad-dancing to Justin Timberlake at a family wedding. Pop deserves better. Rock deserves better. We all deserve better.

If all the album achieves is to serve as a playful reminder of the ramshackle brilliance of Stinson’s old band, so be it. But it deserves better. It’s joyous. And Paul Westerberg is nowhere to be seen.

Apologists will see it as a paranoic update of the doom-rock blueprint laid down by King Crimson and Amon Düül. Anyone else will be reaching for the paracetamol.

As evidenced here, experimental doesn’t mean inaccessible. This is music from the past that, while only looking forward, is still daring the present to catch up.

There are no glib solutions on offer, no political polemic, just the realisation that America is now a deeply divided nation and that this issue needs to be addressed. Elsewhere, the deep soul that Haynes has been mining on some of his solo albums has been brought into the Mule paddock with The Man I Want To Be and Easy Times, along with the more sprightly Sarah Surrender, which has, dare one say it, a Hall & Oates feel.

Their seventh album doesn’t stint on the Wagnerian bombast, from the Ritalin-powered kick drum assault of Astral Empire to the epic Guitar Hero duels of, well, pretty much everything on here. But there are pop smarts amid the silliness.

The energy levels are astounding too, with producer Julian Raymond extracting a sonic attack that makes Rick Nielsen, Robin Zander, Tom Petersson and Daxx Nielsen sound like they’ve been locked in an industrial hangar with a bunch of AK-47s.

They’re presented raw, ragged and (if you wanna believe the hype) completely unrehearsed. It’s kind of a mess, but that’s pretty much the point.

Together, they’ve produced an album of cracking Mac-esque pop, most notably the clipped, catchy Feel About You and the tightly constructed first single In My World.

The gravel-voiced 62-year-old coasts along on foot-stomping jukebox cliché at times, but his howling murder ballad Fixin’ To Die burns with an agreeably ragged fury, while plaintive finger-picking story songs such as News From Colorado are welcome reminders that he can sometimes out-Springsteen The Boss himself in the heart-stirring Americana stakes.

This record pumps Royal Blood forward without diluting their strengths. They might have to tweak something next time around, but by then they could well be the biggest young rock band in the world. Two boys making true noise. It’s in their veins.

Their strength is in their inclusivity--yes, they’re from a punk background, but this is melodic hardcore with killer choruses to stir the hardest of hearts, bursting with a positive energy that channels your adrenaline until passive listening becomes all but impossible.

As with most of Anathema’s records, this is one that fans of Elbow and Radiohead would love every bit as much as fans of Opeth or Marillion.

Chuck is Berry’s last inimitable flare, delivered in the nick of time.

Sacred picks up where they left off with 1994’s The Church Within, ramping up the grinding riffs and Wino’s tortured Ozzy-esque wail.

Sections within Things Buried In Water 1 and The Stranger’s House suggesting melody, the rest an offbeat, thrumming sound collage.

Recorded in various locations during a 28-day tour in March/April 2016, this album represents the finest work from the Jean Hervé- Péron/Zappi Diermaier version of Faust in years.

According to Paul, the new mix is intended to reflect the original mono mix, in that all the voices and drums are in the middle, while also being a stereo mix. The result is, as it sounds, a compromise, where everything is not so much in stereo as on steroids. ... The real excitement for fans is of course in the extra tracks. Here there are no massive surprises (I expect--I was sent the double CD, not the full six pack), just some interesting spoken bits and a lot of Anthology-style backing tracks

The songs are less varied, however, tending to chug along morosely, based around similar clusters of chords to David Bowie’s Five Years, which suits the apocalyptic foreboding but can make you long for a brightly coiffed alien androgyne to come along and break the monotone gloom. ... Still, for all its solemnity, Waters is clearly in his element, even if his Indian summer might coincide with our nuclear winter.

Baird’s weary, almost impassive croon and deadpan humour across both records can’t hide his serious resistance to our self-deceiving, digitally distanced lives.

Rundgren tricks abound in the sonics--he’s a master of the synth and the Beach Boys chorus, but the overall mood is on point.

The most focused, challenging singer-songwriter record in some years.