The unpromising combinations separate rather than coalesce. The talented, pugilistic youngster’s best feels yet to come.

It won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but if you like your music to sound as if it could soundtrack a coming of age montage in a particularly gloomy John Hughes film, you found your gal.

Recorded in Sheffield with crack producer Andy Bell, Afterglow is an ambitious addition to the sounds of a city that is fast becoming the central hub for the UK’s best folk talent.

The result is a fourth album that conveys Maus’ confounding persona with total confidence: sometimes silly, sometimes stentorian, it gives the impression of a man in full command of his off-piste forays, rendering it fascinating even as it befuddles.

In the absence of a live album, these re-recordings with a band including son-of- John Cody offer loving snapshots of Carpenter’s reckoning with his track record, here covering the years between 1974’s goofy Dark Star and 1998’s macho Vampires.

It’s an ambitious collision of worlds that Holden and The Animal Spirits pull off with style.

Given Low Country Blues was Grammy-nominated, stand by for the superior Southern Blood to appear in many year-end lists.

Conceived in antithesis to the tediously technically proficient metal that’s abundant these days, EW’s ninth album takes joy-doom to another level. Their riffs match the fuzziness of their weed-fogged minds.

Fleeting pleasures aside, the focus becomes wayward afterwards.

Nothing here is going to uproot trees, but given Hillman’s recent lack of activity the release is welcome. The ideal aural companion to Johnny Rogan’s comprehsive Byrds books.

The resultant World Wide Funk comes across as a well-drilled unit running through manoeuvres without actually going into battle.

Opener Fly On Your Wall is oddly reminiscent of the plodding, tense quality of some of John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band – the bits where Ringo appears to be playing biscuit tins--that is, until Olsen’s soaraway, otherworldly vocals take it somewhere altogether more spectral. Special follows, a languid jam that could have easily slotted on to the last album.

Its brief running time over just six tracks harks back to earlier releases such as The Internationale or his debut Life’s A Riot, but this is a definitively 2017 soundtrack.

A painstaking labour of love for all concerned, Savage Young Dü is--at last--the kind of archival release fans of these transcendent punk-pop pioneers have long since craved.

Dylan Sharp and Carrie Keith back their deftly penned songs with the kind of delicate sonic weirdness that demands attention without distracting from the principal communicative mission of the tune and its lyrics. They might proclaim to be out of range but Gun Outfit are still right on target.

Though it’s short and sweet, the 10 tracks that make up Dury’s fifth album are cinematic in scope and yet laser focused.

The sounds are cosmic and enveloping, yet at times comedic, and full of joie de vivre. It’s fulsome, nattering with treble, and all quite similar, and is hence something of an assault course, but is a great reaffirmation that Yoshimi holds the keys to happiness, as viewed through a cracked mirror.

Ostensibly half an hour of instrumentals, recent Walker converts should tread carefully but long-time watchers should come along for the latest excursion in this evolving ride. Things could get wild.

The nascent stirrings of Japan’s independent music scene can be divined here; the first comp to offer a detailed overview of the country’s fertile early 70s folk and rock movement.

The demos and live tracks will be intrigue enough--while the as-yet unconvinced may be surprised to find an album that remains relevant; as resonant, daring and evocative as it ever was.

Most of Billy 2.0’s low-key lullabies are pleasant enough. Indeed, you could place any one of them in the middle of a big rock record as an eyebrow-raising, spine-tingling palate cleanser. Enduring them all in one sitting is, unfortunately, less fun than consuming 11 consecutive courses of the same pumpkin-flavoured sorbet.

Arguably superior, its confident follow-up The Knowledge is again enriched with songs relating to Difford and Tilbrook’s old stamping grounds.

On new album Daylight, Black’s voice is often less strident than it used to be, though she can still raise the roof in the chorus of songs like Pass The Power. She’s as fearsomely committed as ever, but there’s an agreeably lush sheen over the band’s blend of ska, reggae and pop.

More abstruse and cerebral.

The first UNKLE album in seven years regresses towards bad old habits, its patchy pleasures often lacking the cohesive clout needed to sharpen its ambitions.

Arguably The Horrors’ best album yet. V, it would seem, is for Victory.

While the music collected here has ultimately been Hooker’s ticket to prosperity, awards, and the good life, its real value is its cultural and historical significance. The music that he created 60 years ago, even today in the 21st century, remains an essential part of the DNA of rock music. It’s (yep) a veritable boogie wonderland.

Ultimately, Woods deserves the hype, though more consistency would deliver fully on her talent.