Louche rumbles such as Death And Destruction echo the furious rockabilly assault of a Jim Jones, without the obligatory quiff or preacher schtick, but that doesn’t stop leader Adam Weiner sing smouldering piano ballads such as Forever and Montreal.

They’ve stripped away the guitars to the point where only trace elements remain. ... The whole thing makes Ed Sheeran sound like Extreme Noise Terror.

Accomplished but derivative.

These 45 songs on 3CDs comprise the best overview yet of NC&TBS’s unique and evocative voodoo.

Jones’s vocal has gutsed-up, gained a gravel-gargling Waits-ian weight that suits TRM’s swampland boogie perfectly. Elsewhere No Fool swaggers loutishly, Aldecide sows a Bad Seed vibe and Boil Yer Blood delivers on its promise. Righteous stuff and then some.

Every song is a standout.

Occult Architecture is pleasing enough, if a little deodorised at times.

If anything on Into The Woods Brock and his merry men (including drummer Richard Chadwick and keyboardist Tim Blake) conjure, not the mellowness but the magic and mystery, even malevolence, of nature.

The resulting sound is mature and measured, with similarities to Dulli’s work with the Twilight Singers more easily applicable than anything in Whigs essentials Congregation or Gentleman.

Confessional, witty, with a touch of The Vaselines, Swear I’m Good At This finds singer Alex Luciano magnifying small daily failures and turning them into works of art.

While Wayne, Lucid Nightmare and the 50s mirrorball romance of Crystal Night maintain the crisp retro spark of old, the rest of this somewhat inspired 55-minute mess smacks of the Fat Whites’ sticky-trousered narco-country.

Moore, along with My Bloody Valentine’s Deb Goodge (bass) and guitarist James Sedwards (Chrome Hoof) and the aforementioned Shelley, is displaying a fine linear growth with Rock N Roll Consciousness.

The record oozes confidence and spunky attitude--a far cry from her more recent country records thanks to the partnership with past collaborators Jeff Trott and Tchad Blake.

Carlene Carter duets on five of the 13 songs, notably What Kind Of Man Am I (sung by Sheryl Crow in Ghost Brothers...) and the light-hearted Sugar Hill Mountain (from Ithaca), while elsewhere Mellencamp shines alone--particularly on Sad Clowns (where his voice and lyric hurtles into Tom Waits territory) and All Night Talk Radio.

They continue to show a maverick character of their own while sharing Parker’s ear for a heady, swirling prog-pop soundscape.

Two or three weaker numbers drag quality levels down, but Pollinator contains enough vintage Blondie spirit to get the old juices flowing again.

Lanegan is on daring and seductive form throughout. The Passenger-lite Emperor misfires but that’s forgivable with a strike rate this high.

At the heart of the album is Brooker’s dextrous keyboard work, his pristine piano-playing embellished in all the right places by Josh Phillips’s Hammond organ. What’s equally impressive is the might of Brooker’s voice, which has lost none of its vigour in the 50 years since he first skipped the light fandango.

Death Song (their first album in four years and one whose title neatly appends their name to the VU classic that first inspired them) is their heaviest to date, a toxic draught of garage-rock and booming psychedelia that buzzes with echo and reverb.

A must-hear for fans of glorious, horrible noise.

All the emo-rooted, posthardcore stylistic hallmarks are present and correct, embellished with a load of electronic arsing about on top, but the almost constant use of the same soaring ‘wo-ah’ pop hooks will soon have you wanting to hack your ears off with a pair of blunt scissors.

The news is good though: Davies is in terrific, matchless voice, his storied career standing up to a sprawling treatment without too much drag.

Where a fug of overdriven psychedelic effects could overwhelm the message and the music--particularly on the ritualistic Call Upon The Fire and the exquisitely trippy Absolution Song-- he instead maintains subtlety, style and superb songcraft in a slow movement that’s all his own.

The album is still as random as a Frenchman’s hat at times, though, and songs like Mad Shelley’s Letterbox and the superb 1970 In Aspic (‘Your bacteria are in me,’ intones Hitchcock, wide-legged and eyeless) couldn’t be written by anyone else. A worthwhile ball to put in his canon.

A few lesser tracks overplay the voyeuristic horror-movie violence, but otherwise Body Count are sounding much more like hardcore elder statesmen than a shock-rock side project.

Although micro-melody whimsy is at its heart, there’s a Tangs/Radiophonic Workshop slant that gives tracks such as Midwinter Rites a spooky Kill List/Children Of The Stones edge.

Such is Taylor’s bristling conviction, and the mastery of his sparse instrumentation, that he holds you transfixed.

Time may have dulled some of their digital dexterity but their enthusiasm is undimmed, as is their ear for what makes a good Fairport song.