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.

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.

Until We Are Outnumbered sees Danish bruisers The Kandidate combine the simple and punchy elements of thrash and hardcore to neck-shattering contemporary effect.

Yet more by-the-numbers box-ticking chart fodder from Young Guns, recently voted “band most likely to disappear up the collective arse of Lostprophets”.

A Sort Of Spasmic Phlegm Induced by Leaden Fumes of Pleasure… that’s the album title of the year right there, thanks to tongue-in-cheek Swiss stoners Phased.

A whole lot of nineties bands have crawled back out of obscurity this year, but few of them deserve a second chance so much as Living Colour always have.

Mis-billing themselves badly as grunge revivalists, Starseed’s debut album Peace Machine would do quite well in the pop-metal arena… if it were half as long.

Gibraltar-born nu-metal survivors Breed 77 deliver their fifth album, Insects; the music is pretty decent, though the lyrics are somewhat lacking.

New reviewer Jonathan McCalmont cuts his teeth on the chilly magnificence of The Life We Have Chosen, the debut album from metalcore Scousers Carcer City.