From time to time, pop music spawns something you can be proud of. Something whose intrinsic value reaches beyond the “guilty pleasure” status. Lily Konigsberg knows, and it is probably high time we talked about her.

At first, but only at first, and at a distracted initial spin, DROTT’s Orcus drifts towards the foggy moors of art rock and post-progressive, right where their boundaries blend together, and you can’t help but hear King Crimson’s Discipline.

Manic Street Preachers have always been a band striving for epic. The Ultra Vivid Lament is no different. An open, far-reaching valley nestled in a grassy space surrounded by low peaks.

As soon as “Hidden hands” kicks in and its open chords stamp a sonic wave in your silence, you remember why we miss live gigs. Its vaguely post-punk stride proceeds at a jangle pace; as if Modern English (“I Melt With You” era) tried to imitate The Byrds. Motorists are a live creature, and that is rather obvious towards the middle of the album (“Through to you”, “New day”), but one should not underestimate the drive this Canadian trio manages to convey by means of an original take on well-crafted riffage.

There was a time in the early ‘90s when two unlikely points on the map of the United States became the centre of the musical world.

Superheroes and metal music: who would have thought? Well, lots of people, apparently, as the blend of gifted stock characters and the hefty offspring of rock music is anything but new or original.

Let’s get straight to the point: this album is irritating and it’s kitsch. It’s not your standard kitsch mind you, it’s the kind you’d find if you mixed Gilbert & George with 1970’s American Bible Belt depression and then forced it though an English boarding school.