If life is still depicted largely as a struggle against despair, these songs nevertheless suggest that small moments of happiness can be found amongst the darkness. If the message of No Joy is ultimately one of perseverance, it’s fitting that this is an album which seems set to grant its creators a new lease of life.

Those still pining for the slick, sparkly, arena-sized rock bombast of the masterful This Is War will be left wanting, but such is how things go on Mars, and it’s a hearteningly better album than the awkward, confused America. The guitars are back.

As obvious as it is to say, Baroness are completely singular in what they do.

There is a very good rock record waiting for you here – and certainly one that deserves to be appreciated by many more than nine people.

It’s testament to how thrilling Rivers Of Heresy is that by the time you reach at closing track The Looming, released, somewhat boldly, as the first single from the album, that its impact hasn’t been lessened.

Like the very youth it seems to be chronicling, Learning How To Live And Let Go flies by in a blur, blindsiding with the contemplative poignancy of arms-round-shoulders closer It Ain’t Easy.

With a nod to the classic rock that inspired them, Greta Van Fleet continue to contort those great influences in challenging and evocative new directions.

There might be a heavy dose of sarcasm in the seams of its shell-suited soul, but Super Snõõper is never arch or cynical. Rather, it’s an exhilarating endorphin rush you’ll want to return to again and again.

As usual, PVRIS demonstrates the value of existing in the spaces between genres, and that moments of combination and contrast are often the most exciting.

It comes across like the soundtrack to a great lost ’90s teen movie and, best of all, with its irresistible energy and eminently quotable lyrical couplets ('I have to say you look like Hell / Oh well'), the whole thing’s an absolute blast.

Yet while this album rails against the world our plutocratic/oligarchic overlords have created for the rest of us, it also displays a vulnerability that’s rare in hardcore and post-hardcore.

A trip worth taking, over and over again.

As a QOTSA album, In Times New Roman… is dark and disorientating; for Joshua Homme, it feels like a wholly necessary outpouring of creative catharsis.

Sixteen albums in, that they continue to surprise and create as much as they do is to be celebrated on its own. That it represents their best work in a decade is the triumph of a genuinely magnificent band.

An overwhelming addition to a back catalogue not lacking in transcendental power, Purge finds Justin channelling distress and disgust into music that hits both body and soul, creating something wonderful out of horror and pain. This really is a perfectly-titled album.

Tomorrow Never Comes is more of a delight than really it has any right to be. Certainly, it’s a good deal more compelling than any of its authors’ more recent albums.

It prises beauty from unimaginable suffering. Make no mistake, Foo Fighters have delivered a masterpiece – one they never would have wanted to have to record, but a masterpiece nonetheless.

For those who like their rock and metal to hit with swift immediacy, Take Me Back To Eden’s hour-plus runtime might prove a bit of a slog, but if you allow yourself to be fully immersed in Sleep Token’s world, the sonic rewards are plentiful.

There is an explosive exuberance at the heart of Enter Shikari’s superb seventh album.

Attention to detail makes …So Unknown an involving listen, but emphatically doesn’t detract from the band’s primary intention of rearranging your skeletal structure through elastic, chugging riffs and neck-snapping beats.

At an hour-and-a-quarter, like its predecessor, 72 Seasons is a lot to cram in in one go, a marathon. But it slaps consistently, and hard.

So Much (For) Stardust does have a foot in a past FOB, but where they're taking you is somewhere you weren't expecting, and it's equally welcome. Just as importantly, they sound like Fall Out Boy again.

It’s hard not to have fun when every track here feels suitably like its own adventure, and impressively still, BABYMETAL sound like they’ve been steering the ship through these parallel universes not for the first time, but for years.

This is extreme music heavy in both sound and content. But this is also part of the strength of the album. It is unflinching in its subject matter and depth of its darkness, just as it is unafraid to be exactly what it is. And that's something quite unlike anything else you'll hear in 2022.

Tantalisingly, this record also feels like the next building-block in a potentially genre-defining body of work. As much as we can’t wait for 100,000 gecs, however, there’s a mountain of fun to be had before we get there.

Past //Present // Future dismantles every box the band have found themselves pigeonholed in, and sets them on their own path of integrity and triumph.

They’re making bigger leaps than ever. Even their more familiar-sounding songs show signs of metamorphosis.

Truth Decay is an album that sees You Me At Six grabbing elements from 2014’s Cavalier Youth and 2010’s Hold Me Down. Then it wraps them up into a time capsule of what it means to be a young adult in the ever-difficult 2020s.