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.

Even though you could not call the songs 'lean' – half of the eight clock in at over seven minutes and none under five – there is a sense that not a moment's wasted, everything is exactly where it needs to be.

This is a record that taps into punk rock’s restless spirit while giving it a sharp, modern lick.

Some of their most effective songwriting to date. The hazy, swirling sound is as beautiful as ever – see the silken Pill To Swallow and the gossamer-like I Held You Like Glass – but this time, they’ve spun it into more impactful shapes.

This is what it sounds like when Poppy is properly in her element. When she’s got something that lights her on fire, she’s unstoppable, and this is how she’s been able to write possibly her best songs yet.

Written and performed by a band well into their groove, and produced by Bad Religion legend-cum-Epitaph owner Brett Gurewitz, the finished product is finely balanced, tastefully under-polished and perfectly baked.

Megadeth (the album) is the perfect encapsulation of how Megadeth (the band) have lived: bold, frequently brilliant but occasionally flawed.

The only letdown is a cover of Dead Or Alive’s YOU SPIN ME ROUND (Like A Record), where for all of Thomas’ squalling riff work, it’s obviously just there as padding as it doesn’t quite fit in, and Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos performs as if it’s mere karaoke. Other than that, Thomas has masterminded a very solid collection of songs and though they’re not stretching rock ‘n’ roll to entirely new dimensions, they offer a tantalising glimpse into who this man is when he’s not a cog in a bigger machine.

Ascension is a truly substantial body of work, but it’s executed with an almost ghostly lightness of touch. Evidence of artists who have mastered their dark craft and another late-career triumph from one of metal’s most enduringly brilliant bands.

Consistently, Watch It Die is easy listening. That’s a compliment, given the way that gnarly guitar lines and shouted vocals can intertwine with synth lines you’d expect from The Killers, such as the motoring thump of Between The Waves. It’s also a critique on the simplicity of some melodies.

A thunderous, cathartic debut that remains subtly political and emotive while prioritising surface-level pandemonium. From top to bottom, it exists on the edge of a cliff.

Across imperfect accounts and admissions, 5SOS are acknowledging how the pressure of performing links to a pressure to always be liked: to be young, to be attractive, to be good but not too good. So, they may piss off a metalhead or two by being colourfully themselves, but they’re sure good at pop rock.

This is punk as it was always meant to be: loud, ugly, righteous and alive.

This is an album for the coldest of autumns and for dark nights of the soul. It’s hellish, haunting and an emotional maelstrom, deeper and more textured than Witch Fever have ever gone before.

Creeper have always been great. But in this current (and unexpectedly elongated) vampire phase, they’ve blossomed into their true, proper selves.