David Gilmour – Rattle That Lock

Ask your dad about this one, he’ll have been listening to it all weekend while driving up and down the A14 in his Audi. He’ll probably say something like “yeah it’s very cool, sounds like something the old Floyd boys would have made, lots of very cool epic guitar chords, really atmospheric, it’s quite funky too, but over all really good to chill out to, you know.” And then he’ll ask if you can get him some more of that “really cool weed” you had last month, but it’s “totally cool” if you can’t.

Dad’s been acting differently this year. I can’t put my finger on it.

He then says “call your mum, she’s been a bit upset lately” before jumping back in his car and tearing off to an appointment at the Belgravia Hairloss Clinic. 5/10

Stereophonics – Keep the Village Alive

At around the 0:56 mark during opening track ‘C’est La Vie’, Kelly Jones pronounces “ferris wheel” in the most absurd way I’ve ever heard a human being pronounce a fairly popular term. Now I would never normally recommend that you listen to Stereophonics in any other situation, you have far too good a sense of self-preservation than that, but the first minute of ‘C’est La Vie’ is definitely worth a go. Just make sure you do it using a streaming service where you’re confident Stereophonics won’t receive any money from the play. I’m not sure if it’s Jones cracking under the pressure to Americanise his vocals or if he genuinely thinks “ferris wheel” needs seven extra vowels, but either way it’s hilarious. The rest of the track is a sustained, unwavering assault of rudimentary musicianship that yields the same results if you were to give a room full of eight-year olds some pots and pans and said “play these as if you’re in a rock band, kids!”

Elsewhere ‘Sing Little Sister’ has a chorus that implores, “You’ve got to dance little sister. So come on next to me. You’ve got to dance little sister. You’ve got to screeeeaaaaaam” which equals the unpleasantness of Inner Circle’s ‘Girl I Want to Make You Sweat’ but adds an extra touch of incest. There’s also a Christmas song on here too. I don’t fucking know why. The rest of the album offers nothing quite as hilarious or awful, it’s just another redundant act of pointlessness in one long pointless career of redundant awfulness. 1/10

Chris Cornell – Higher Truth

I had completely forgotten about Scream, the Timbaland produced album from 2009 which sought to reposition the Soundgarden vocalist as an elder, more worldlier version of Justin Timblerake. Instead it merely painted a grim picture of what might happen if Timberlake followed the same dark path as Cornell, full of misguided choices, brutalised vocal chords and the second most poorly received Bond theme of all time.

Thankfully his latest solo album Higher Truth discards any desperate attempt at pop acceptability (which even six years ago felt weirdly anachronistic) and instead comfortably wraps itself up in the same polished orchestration and homely acoustic guitars that one might find on the City of Angels soundtrack.

For fans of the Goo Goo Dolls, Alanis Morissette (post second album) and Matchbox Twenty. But ironically not Soundgarden. 5/10

Keith Richards – Crosseyed Heart

Ol’ indestructible Keef is in fine voice here on his first solo album in 23 years. I say that comparatively speaking as he sounds uncannily like Bob Dylan, only with less of the inaudible Worzel Gummidginess of Dylan’s latter days. In fact much of Crosseyed Heart totally betrays his 71 years and easily sounds like the work of a… uh… 61 year-old. His voice more honeyed whisky, then bottle of Glen’s Vodka filled with gravel.

The melodies are certainly the equal of the Stones’ super commercial late-80s work, ‘Heartstopper’ has a similarly addictive hook as ‘Mixed Emotions’ and ’Trouble’ has same the light-touch of Tom Petty at his most charming. It’s a fine album, a touch languid in places, but certainly the one I’m most likely to spend more time with than anything else on this list. 7/10

Duran Duran – Paper Gods

One of my least favourite pieces of music ever thrust into the world is the theme to Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, or specifically its yapping dog backing vocals that makes my left eye twitch with revulsion. There’s a bit in the chorus of Paper Gods‘ first single ’Pressure Off’ that sounds just like that. Upsettingly ‘Pressure Off’ (impressively featuring Janelle Monae and less impressively Niles ‘will play bass on your loan consolidation ad jingle for a few quid’ Rodgers) is also the best track on what is a laughably dreadful album.

Title track ‘Paper Gods’ is a seven minute endurance test that thinks it’s far more profound than it really is, ‘Last Night in the City’ featuring Kiesza is a cheap knock-off of a hypothetical Calvin Harris feat. Rhianna track that demeans everyone involved. ‘You Kill Me With Silence’ stretches Le Bon’s already strained vocals to breaking point and ‘Danceaphobia’ is a blatant rip-off of Chromeo, replete with fuck-awful spoken word passages (“I am your doctor, I’ve seen these symptoms before, I may have to work on you through the night”).

And I fucking hate ‘Rio’ too.

Sorry, I lashed out there, I didn’t mean it. 3/10

Slayer – Repentless

Yeah thats right! Slayer! Ha ha ha!!! I bet you weren’t expecting that after all these boring old men were you? Ha ha ha. TWIST ENDING!!! Except the joke’s on me, as Slayer’s 11th album in 33 years is a fairly rudimentary, predictable affair. Yes it seems even thrash metal bands aren’t immune to the ravages of time and circumstances. Like all the artists featured here, Slayer have been through their fair share of line-up changes for reasons equally tragic, although only Slayer can claim that one of its members contracted necrotizing fasciitis from a spider in a hot-tub.

In that respect, it’s practically a miracle that a 30 year-old band which has lost half of its original line-up manages to bring the same level of fury as it did a few decades ago, so in that respect it’s a triumphant yet comfortably reliable beast. In fact, when your dad inevitably asks for a new “very cool music recommendation” after he’s bored of David Gilmour, buy him this. 7/10

Right, I’m knocking off for the day. If you’re around later on, you can come meet me by the feeearris wheeaaal.

Check out all the latest music releases in our new album reviews section, including this round-up featuring Lana Del Rey and Kwabs.