It’s all great if you’re willing to strap on some cowboy boots and hop on the nearest hayride, but hardcore rockers are gonna wanna sit this one out.

Creepy and disturbing, but it’ll still make their mothers proud.

Swampy southern sounds are their stock-in-trade but it’s a soulful brew with all the authentic trappings you’d expect of a recording from Woodland Studios, Nashville.

It’s 1984 forever for the Scorpions, a return to slick, semi-hard rock and power ballads.

Songs From The Black Hole is unlikely to mean much to anyone not already dialled in to Prong’s gnarled, existentialist world view, but it’s difficult to begrudge them this indulgence. [Jun 2015, p.92]

There’s plenty here to keep their hard-core fans transfixed until the Jonestowners return with the next full albumy walbum.

Some imaginative arrangements--notably on a brass-heavy Ghost Of Santa Fe--can’t disguise the fact that the transcendent qualities this music demands are too often absent.

Despite the inclusion of unreleased material and early versions of Crime In The City and Ordinary People, there’s little here to entice anyone but the hardcore fan.

Add one of 2015’s swooniest ballads in Trouble and you’ve got an album that’s not exactly pretty, but is definitely a keeper.

Diehards will thrill to the inclusion of hitherto unreleased versions of Some Kinda Love, Sweet Jane and After Hours, though perhaps baulk at having to shell out for material they already own. Still, this is historical, compelling fare.

Even more than The Next Day, these seven tracks suggest the sounds inside his head are in sync with his long-time soul brother Scott Walker, though thankfully he remains on warmer terms with old-fashioned melody and emotion.

Purple simultaneously builds on what its predecessor achieved and reins in its sometimes overwhelming sprawl.

The DIY arrangements--treated guitars, keyboards, the odd banjo--sometimes sound like they’ve been fixed up with gaffer tape, adding to the immediacy of songs like Boy Band, a comedic tale about has-beens on a dodgy comeback trail, and the autobiographical, genuinely affecting Property Shows.

For the most part, Def Leppard is the sound of a band who have rediscovered their sense of purposes after a wobbly 25 years.

This is a record to sink into, not to shock you into action. The Rev’s best.

A haunted, husky-voiced cover of the Lennon/McCartney classic And I Love Her is another highlight, invoking the naked beauty of Nirvana’s 1993 Unplugged session. But these are rare meaty morsels in a musical slop bucket of scraps. At best, Montage Of Heck is an ideal Christmas present for the most undemanding of Cobain completists. At worst, a barrel-scraping cash-in that demeans his legacy.

Recorded with Thomas’s snarl up front and the band on screeching overload, they pile through new titles such as Welcome To The New Dark Ages and revisit Sonic Reducer and Final Solution, plus the Sonics’ garage classic Strychnine.

Vocals are minimal, though less processed and more prominent than usual.

We get charismatic wagon wheels of delta stomp’n’roll, conjuring images of high-class horror scenes in rugged Westerns.

Admittedly, it still shines and chimes, the charming Yesterday Was Just A Dream is a highlight, as is the swaying Brand New Day, but the opening skiffle of You Belong To Me and the indifferent Go Down Rockin’ (as inspired as its title might imply), are Bryan Adams by numbers.

It’s bashed out in an exuberant blast of piano-stonkin’ late-60s rock’n’soul that occasionally wanders into poppy, kitschy Elton John territory, but owes most of its groove to the lean, mean, stray-cat blues of Beggars Banquet.

Marr’s first solo live collection is full of jingle-jangle virtuosity and timeless new wave zing. But it doesn’t take long before he bumps up against his limitations as a lead singer, and his over-fondness for straight, shouty, Noel Gallagher-endorsed bloke-rock.

They may have a more muscular setting, but there’s no denying the appeal of Argent’s ornate piano and Blunstone’s breathy warble.

Lovely flamenco guitars, the slightest rhythms and subtle splashes of steel guitar and accordion are the backdrop for a voice that remains as pristine as when he made his mark in Blighty touring with The Clash.

His [Brian Henneman's] Tom Petty-tinged voice and bursts of Rickenbacker guitar reinforce the familiar sound. Unfortunately he doesn’t always move with the times.

Dream-folkies will be transported back to the gauzy early days of Genesis or the Byrds, indie heads will be transported back to the most powerful skunk spliff they ever smoked along to Pond, Grandaddy or Neutral Milk Hotel.

Alone In The Universe is a triumph of songcraft and studio invention, one that trounces notions of soft rock and guilty pleasures. He might be a man alone, but he’s got the whole world, potentially, in his hands. Again.

Cheatahs create melodic miasmas of space marimba, psych pop and crystalline drones, while lyrically teleporting around the globe.