All flutes and bubbles, A Jammed Exit could be a Jethro Tull B-side, and only dedicated lovers of the eight-minute free-form scree solo need apply to Nervous Tech (Nah John), which is essentially Frank Zappa having a fit. Run for the exits.

Shiny Happy People still feels like an irritant, while the Turtles-y Near Wild Heaven is pleasant at best. By contrast, the muted baroque of Low and the anguished beauty that seeps from the heart of Country Feedback--so intense in the live arena that Michael Stipe often sang it on his knees, with his back to the audience--are classic examples of the band at their moody, mysterious best.

It may not quite give you the sheer electric shock jolt of their classic Meantime and Betty albums, but Helmet are still capable of bloodying your nose from 100 paces.

Everyone has done their bit to honour the music and the man. The result is a record that hums with excitement and does Miller proud.

Motorik psychedelia at its finest, The Lucid Dream have stepped up.

Acoustic is a consistent collection that works best when the songs are strongest, and it’s movingly effective on the final track, a cover of Richard Hawley’s Long Black Train.

A bumpy ride overall, but with enough peaks to excuse the more pedestrian sections.

This House Is Not For Sale is no masterpiece, and while the punchy title track sonically nods to their heyday, most of it is made up of by-numbers pop.

There’s an intimate warmth glowing throughout the 20 tracks on these two discs as Steve audibly lives every subtle nuance he sings or plays, maybe still with some disbelief that he’s now able to headline Wembley Arena by his lonesome self.

Vocalist Mark Stewart’s unending salt-and-vigour vocals on songs like City Of Eyes and Zipperface combine brilliantly with a space-dub electro palette, and the results are thrilling.

A rockier proposition, re-channelling the militant, straight-ahead postpunk spirit of 1980, especially on Psychic Attack.

On TFF, NIN and Cab-Volt industrialism nag at Rileyesque rave while referencing The Beatles’ Because. Clever.

Whether on a squelchy analogue wig-out or swaying in the breeze of apocalyptic desert rock, this is a Brit-psych absolute peach.

Goat have built a minor cult around their progressive, globe-straddling psychedelic world music, and this third album will only lengthen the Kool-Aid queue.

The engrossing full-album reprise Forever Now gives an insight into frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s booze and pills-induced 2012 meltdown, but otherwise Revolution Radio is more melodic air-punching about guns, gas and the American nightmare. File under: Ain’t Broke.

Thankfully, they haven’t abandoned their experimental urges completely, with Apricity striking a deft balance between rushing choruses and free electronic grooves.

The re-inclusion of guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch to the band has seen Korn embracing their dense roots and they’re all the better for it.

Hynde may not win over many new converts with this old-school collection, but the rich soil of classic Americana is a fine place for one of our greatest rock voices to find fresh inspiration.

The additional CDs redeem the era. Every B-side here is superior to half the record.

On this fifth album they do sound like a country band who like to rock sometimes, rather than southern rockers who do country, but their versatility makes such distinctions academic.

Ultimately, Airbourne play honest, no-nonsense, straight-down-the-line classic rock in a manner true to all the basic tenets of the genre.

Alas, by front-loading the album with the kind of numbers U2 would be proud of--witness Reverend--Walls grinds to a halt in tedious balladry, rather than scaling new heights.

Dillinger remain a proudly unique proposition, and Dissociation is a thrilling, and apparently final, fuck you to the status quo.

Clearly inspired by the recent critical upswing, but beholden to no one, this is the creation of a band with an utterly focused sense of identity. The result is gloriously uneasy listening for the masses.

This is a clever hybrid of prog, hard rock and dance; there’s even a full-blown power ballad (that’s part The Tubes, part Kate Bush atmospherics) in the shape of All We Have Is Now.

It’s a bold, bombastic rock album that really chimes with our troubled times. Alter Bridge got issues, and that’s a good thing.

Ghost hammers Merseybeat into grotesque new shapes and closer Easily Misbled, an elegant mariachi acoustic noir, is a refreshing respite. But too much here is sub-Dinosaur Pile-Up slush, dredged, ironically, from Britrock’s bottom end.

Really it should get 10 but nobody’s perfect.