These are dark times. It ain’t easy playing rock and roll in most countries and France is no exception. High culture looks down its nose at anything that’s not home-grown - just like a Paris waiter in an expensive restaurant sneers at linguistically-challenged tourists who can’t read the menu.

So give Chris Rolling and his band some credit for swimming against the tide. Chris who?

That this would be very good was a no-brainer. Van Campbell from Black Diamond Heavies and Freddy J IV from Radio Moscow in the same band? Yes, please.

This is raw blues with a dash of soul which is no surprise considering the principals’ main bands.. As you might expect, the band format (it’s not quite a duo - there is a bass player, probably added in post-production) strips it back to basics.

They really are unstoppable and they shouldn’t be. Not at this stage of the game. Their goals might be modest - to have a good time reprising their own past, in the hope that you will too - but that doesn’t underplay how good the reincarnated Sunnyboys are on “Best Seat In The House”.

It’s officially their second live album but really their third (1993’s rough and ready “Shakin’” on Phantom seems to have been disowned) and it perfectly captures the band in all their pop-rock glory, playing the final gig on a mostly sold-out Australian run in March 2015.

The first time I saw Melbourne guitarist Michael Plater I confess I didn’t get it. He was working on a style, which involves building up a mixture of tone and counter-tones, emotion in the strings lending timbre to the vocal.

I only saw a couple of songs, however; since then I’ve seen him on his last two trips to Adelaide, and can tell you that first, on his own he is a very different kettle of vermin, and second, with folk like Dean Richards or Cabin Inn, the stage is not a safe place.

Hunky Punks have been playing the traps around Adelaide over the last year or so, gaining an enthusiastic following, and look like heading interstate. Telling you now: see them. The sheer breadth of improvement over such a short space of time is somewhat gobsmacking. Get "Fly High".

Unlike those bands who practice twice before their next gig, the Hunkies are well-tight, snappy, light, powerful, strong and basically "Fly High" is going to get well and truly into your head. I love the way each song veers away from the last; there’s so much rich variety here, so much gritty eloquence you’re dancing way before you know it. Matt Hills’ production is damn fine, and if the world were a bit fairer, the majors should be crawling up the arses of Messrs Simpson, Omsby, Becker and Grasel.

Future Folklore is very much a new label; "Leftovers and Rarities" bears the product number FFR001. It’s a vinyl record first; and limited at that, which means because the band are damned popular in Europe, if you’ve heard the Dead Brothers, you want it and you’re going to regret forking out for Prince last week or whenever it was.

The odds ’n’ sods of most bands don’t usually make for decent records, though, let’s face it. For every great KISS LP, there’s a wagon-load of stinkers. “Black Moose”was the last time I reviewed The Dead Brothers; so rather than be fair about this, I’m going to ignore all the trainspotterish notes other journos will jump on, and treat “Leftovers and Rarities” as a new, possibly “lost” album.