Matt Skiba and friends are still cranking out the albums… but This Addiction says it’s time for Alkaline Trio to retire gracefully from the field of battle.

Lonely and plaintive post-indie soundscapers Motion Picture Soundtrack draw “Glass Figures” with their echoing melodies. Actually, it’s pretty good, this.

Montreal rednecks-in-waiting Barn Burner bring out the Sabbathy stoner clichés with gusto on Bangers… but sadly, that’s pretty much all there is to it.

Floating around In Orbit with Buttonmoon is like playing a bit-part role in a moodily soundtracked art-house sci-fi horror flick. Dark ambient industrial? Yup.

Accessible Aussie proggers Karnivool may sound a lot like the antipodean A Perfect Circle on Sound Awake, but that doesn’t make it a bad album by any stretch.

Self-professed international post-rock ambient explorers Hollow Branches take a coldly beautiful trip into the haze of memory on their Anchored In Sleep EP.

Self-funded indie-rock five-piece Trail deliver one great track and an album full of not-so-much on debut full-length To The Rest Of The World.

Another Welsh pop-punk band? Straight Lines may not be doing anything particularly new, but Persistence In This Game at least has the courage of its convictions.

Follow The Never Ending Way of Orwarrior deep into the wind-swept dunes of Middle Eastern power metal with progressive Isreali dramatists Orphaned Land.

The Sections EP is the self-funded opening salvo from Young London tech-metal extremists The Safety Fire; I get a feeling it won’t be the last.