Lead single Ensenada opens the record and immediately it's clear that Jakob is the best person yet to attempt to fill his father’s shoes. .... But before long, Until The Sun Explodes becomes repetitive in every aspect. The melodies and flows are copied-and-pasted throughout the record, and the instrumentals are one-dimensional and interchangeable across any song on the album. Before the halfway mark, the bloat is hard to ignore.

It’s a lot of fun, and marks a very welcome return to the game for a punk band who are on the ascendancy.

A wonderful, beautiful thing to have a final offering in which an absent friend is shown in their best, most blinding light. Rather than a sad lamentation, it blazes with the incandescence of one truly alive.

Refusing to stay still or be told what they can or can’t be, EI8HT finds Shinedown overflowing with grand ideas.

While not every track hits that hard, this is still a worthy addition to the band’s catalogue of poignant, sorrowful songs.

The good thing is that Semi-Automatic Machines, BANG and Thirst possess the blistering urgency of a fire in a room with no doors. The downside, however, is that the busy nature of Hammok’s sound doesn’t sustain the interest throughout, especially when, as on Groundbreaker, you’ve got a track pushing the five-minute mark. Frankly, it can be exhausting.

This is music made not to be just heard but felt. It’s unvarnished, conceptual, bleeding emotion from every vein. Surely, this has to be a cult classic in waiting.

Masterful as these 10 tracks will sound to aficionados, though, they cover undeniably well worn ground.

Though not musically Enter Shikari’s most intense album, in spirit Lose Your Self is often their most desperate. .... The music itself remains unique, and Shikari leaders in a field of one.

The result is an album with a lot of enjoyable dichotomy, and boy does it sound like it’s from the ’90s.

Rather than any kind of post-mortem on those years off, Co.War.Dice is a celebration of cranking the volume again, a roof-raising party where everyone is invited.

Born To Kill is a decent comeback from these punkabilly lifers. Here’s hoping its momentum brings us more magic from Mike, sooner rather than later.

Into Oblivion is the best thing to bear the Venom name since the ’80s.

Just as Failure love to keep you on the edge of your seat musically, they also keep you guessing with their lyrics. Confounding, absorbing lines are stockpiled everywhere.

It’s heavy, undoubtedly, and several tracks flirt with death. But exorcising their demons together has strengthened American Football’s unique chemistry and created their most adventurous music.

Foo Fighters like this feel fresh, energised and essential.

Whatever facet of Trent’s oeuvre you’re into, you’ll be well serviced by Nine Inch Noize, a thrilling addition to a career characterised by innovation. Credit must be given to Boys Noize, too, for helping inspire this incredible musical detour. It’s one worth taking. Again and again.

It’s true that not every track here rises to equal heights, but few overstay their welcome.

This is an album that might make you bawl your eyes out, but it may also make you feel like things are gonna work out okay. The results will probably vary on every listen, and depending where your own head’s at.

It might just be the most fun release in either band’s esteemed catalogues.

Into Oblivion is probably the best thing the Virginia metallers have done in 10 years. It’s not a reinvention, but neither is it Lamb Of God making their album again. The whole thing boils with caustic energy, red in tooth and claw.

Whether this is music of meditative transcendence or uncanny terror will depend not just on the listener, but on their frame of mind and surroundings. What remains undeniable is that Sunn O)))’s all-enveloping textures occupy a landscape like no other. Slow your breathing, open your ears and let yourself be taken there.

You Wish contains some exciting flashpoints, but it's also missing that prolonged sense of potency to draw you in further. .... Nevertheless, you can only applaud them for leaping out of the safety net of Doom Loop into a whole new world.

This may be a much more conventional form of hardcore than their alumni have been doing recently, but here Angel Du$t are truly flexing their muscles.

Normal Isn’t is a more subtle beast than Existential Reckoning, a cohesive collection of electro-goth tunes that runs deeper, darker, and in Bad Wolf and ImpetuoUs, hookier than its predecessor.

The lyrics, of course, are predominantly berserk. It wouldn't be a Rob Zombie album if he was to get all sensible on us, and it's fun picking through them. In fact, 'fun' is perhaps the best word for the record, which is a riot from start to finish.

The most diverse collection of music NOTHING have yet compiled. never come never morning and the string-assisted purple strings are imbued with a warm sense of intimacy, while the rain don’t care introduces a subtle country twang to the band’s signature shoegaze.

This 11th full-length finds the Massachusetts maulers’ mastery of heavy music not just undimmed but enhanced.