It’s certainly the best down-to-earth storytelling item to emerge in ages.

The 90s revival starts here... maybe, but It Hugs Back is also a warm, fuzzy species all of its own, and well worth cozying up to.

Once I Was An Eagle represents a bold, adventurous step forward that’s resulted in her most fulfilling work yet.

The occasional moment of reinvention and the band’s tongue-in-cheek attitude make for a playful listen, but even an audacious twist on Divine’s Female Trouble can’t transform the covers album format from an enjoyable diversion to something more substantial.

To say it’s Stewart’s best album for more than 30 years may, ultimately, not be saying much, but it’s refreshing to hear him at the helm of a high-quality record, to hear him singing with heartfelt vigour, and--perhaps most importantly--having fun.

Wolf People invest every glowering note with a watchful intensity that signifies their unswerving dedication.

Trouble Will Find Me manages to pull off the impressive trick of finding the band at once at their most direct and musically inventive.

More so than anything in Harvey’s back catalogue, FOUR impresses with its purity, simplicity, accessibility and lack of pretension.

Ultimately, Mosquito sees the band reenergised, trying new things and, generally, succeeding.

As an exercise in showcasing the singer’s inimitably laconic way with a variety of styles it’s a real winner.

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.