Even the bluntest songs (Angry Bird, Party Liquor) have a dark, cautionary subtext, while the bereft, beautiful Something From Nothing (“about becoming dependent upon faith, which is as much a danger as a source of solace in troubled times”) genuinely stands shoulder to shoulder with Rundgren’s finest ballads.

Every song is good, albeit not life-changing.

2002’s Title TK was a gentler, more measured and still wholly satisfying record, but its predecessor still holds pride of place in most fans’ strawberry hearts.

Each of these 10 songs is a piece in the Feltrinelli puzzle, resulting in an album whose ambition suitably matches its subject’s big ideas.

Though it falls some way short of the arid, acid-fried surreality of their key early releases Meat Puppets II and Up On The Sun, their 14th studio set, Rat Farm, is one of their better post-millennial efforts.

Another strong addition to Lanegan’s increasingly impressive canon, it makes despair sound worryingly inviting.

Musically, it’s primarily beefy, anthemic business as usual--fine for the most part, even if Road Rage and the glitterati-decimating Hollywood Goof Disease veer perilously close to predictability.

While fans can rest assured that rampage is still on the menu, be prepared to well up, too.

This suite of songs, from Infestation Of Grey Death and Tower Of Silence to The Last Laugh, sets out Cathedral’s stall once and for all: a metal band whose palette of influences made their songs more than merely headbanging opportunities.

Arguably, the album lacks a stand-out killer to take to radio but, by the same token, there’s hardly anything that could be described as filler; it’s a solid and confident collection from a veteran songstress who still has a lot to offer.

After a while, the lushness of the vocals becomes a little wearing if you’re looking for the cracked, dark heart of yore; a futile task in any case, as that heart stopped beating a long time ago.

It’s garage rock by numbers and sounds like it took as long to write as it does to listen to.

Change Becomes Us sounds almost like a lost fourth Harvest release.

Inimitable, occasionally impenetrable, but never less than intriguing.

It’s wilful experimentation with no pay-off, sounding lonely, old, with only the occasional, tempting flicker of a genius that once burnt bright.

There’s nothing to dislike about their creeping dread, but it’s hard to engage with it.

The Low Highway is an album brimming with characters, be they Earle himself, his collaborators, his fans or, just as importantly, the long roads he’s pounded all his adult life.

Inevitably, it’s a time capsule, rather than a new album proper, though the best moments make you wonder what might have been.

[Vanishing Point is] raw and unrefined, it has as much energy and attitude as any of their previous albums.

It’s a grower--and a cunningly deceptive one at that.

This is sweetly strange and often emotional music--an album of disquieting tone poems and outlandish lullabies.

An album of endless revelations, its dry wit and dreamy tunes suggest a mash-up between Pet Shop Boys and Jimmy Webb.

Ghost On Ghost completes Iron & Wine’s transformation from simple soul-searching singer-songwriter into fully-fledged bandleader. Beam firmly remains a master at both.

This follow-up to 2012’s magnificent Poor Moon is no less exemplary than its predecessor.

While ’Til Your River Runs Dry is unlikely to broaden his fan base to any large degree, longtime followers should be thrilled to find Burdon in such fine voice.

Ghost Parade and the sustained swell of Giant (which comes on like a less glacial take on Zeit-era Tangerine Dream) are frustratingly low-watt affairs, while Wray--featuring atonal viola from Mr Bungle/Bill Frisell collaborator Eyvind Kang--resembles the abstract strokes of Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock rather than doom-laden trailblazers such as Earth or The Melvins.

The album can probably be considered the most successful effort of the band’s current incarnation, with members Fenriz and Nocturno Culto balancing the visceral and organic spirit that has long defined their output with an increasingly considered (but never, ever polished) approach to songwriting.

CATCS have matured during their absence, yet continue to burn with whatever inner flame drives Bonney and his rabid co-conspirators.