Unless the Barman wishes to alter my remunerative package (i.e. I don’t get to wipe the glasses), I don’t tend to investigate the background of a performer. I prefer to let the songs speak. “Big Hearted Lovin’ Man” is a four-star CD, and if the music were more to my taste I’d be saying more.

Short review: Glistening golden guitar married to Dan Brodie’s transcendent voice is a match in heaven. Even better, Dan can write fine lyrics. Some leap out a little more than others; “Prescription Chemicals’”and “Lower Me Down” are particular favourites.

Brian James hasn’t done a lot of looking back since parting ways with The Damned after writing and playing on their first two albums.

Sure, there’s been the odd reunion tour with Vanian and Co and he’s reprised some of his own songs from back then, but it’s his spells with The Lords of the New Church and a string of other projects - including separate bands with the MC5’s Wayne Kramer, Iggy Pop and Rat Scabies, plus his own Brian James Gang - that have kept him busy. This solo album continues the trend.

This album’s title is apt. Its 10 tracks reek of stinging, searing guitar. As a member of the stillborn-in-rehearsals London SS, James took his lead from the MC5 and the “Raw Power” Stooges and it shows. You can still make a case for him as playing one of the angriest guitars since James Williamson.

Japanese guitarist Kawaguchi Masami has a reputation for heavy riffage and dreamy soundscapes in his long string of bands, but in solo mode he leans heavily towards the latter. “The Mad Guitar Sings” bears more than a reference in name only to Syd Barrett’s post-Floyd stuff but is perhaps even darker in its tone.

Masami has been in bands like Miminokoto, New Rock Syndicate, Los Doroncos (with Doronco of Les Rallizes Denudes), Aihiyo (with Keiji Haino), LSD March and Broomdusters, all of which are just names to me but well regarded by those grounded in Japanese heavy rock and psych.

It’s said there’s nothing new in rock and roll but sometimes it doesn’t matter a damn. Welsh trash punkers The Sick Livers do Turbonegro better than Turbonegro on their newest album, “Mid Liver Crisis”.

The Welsh are famous for their coal mines and given appropriate volume, the 10 tracks here would kill a canary quicker than a mineshaft full of methane. The Sick Livers sing anthems about drinking, fucking and staring into the abyss with a large chaser of dark humour.

There are no massed male choirs on “Mid Liver Crisis”, only the odd “woo-ooh” chorus rising behind buzzbomb guitars and the nagging vocal of frontman Ginge. If the last album, “Motors, Women, Drugs, Booze & Killing”, was in your face then “Mid Liver…” ups the ante in terms of violation of personal space. The engine rooim kicks harder than a pint glass full of port the morning after a seriously pissy Saturday night. 

Adelaide is known as the City of Churches but don't let the name distract you: Levitating Churches have their feet placed firmly in Melbourne, the home of Australia’s live music scene and a magnet for similarly-minded underground acts. This, their self-titled debut long-player, is enough to make the rest of Australia jealous that they can’t lob down to their local music dive and regularly soak up this stuff live.

Their name and cover art summon preconceptions of a meeting between Steve Kilbey and Co and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators (the band moniker apparently derivies from a mis-heard Roky lyric) but there’s a rough and ready undercurrent to Levitating Churches’ music that comes straight from the Aussie pub rock scene of the ‘70s.

The band dives into psychedelia on the swirling “Time Machine” but harks back to sterner stuff on “1973” and the blues-chugging “Levitating Boogie” and most of their LP rocks rather than floats. If rocking rows your boat don’t approach with trepidation.

There’s a place where dirty blues, soul and gospel intersect that many aim for but few get near. That James Leg lands in the middle drop-zone with the precision of a BASE jumper on a million dollar bet says you most of what you need to know about his latest solo record.

James Leg - aka John Wesley Myers of the Black Diamond Heavies and The Immortal Lee County Killers - is the bona fide son of a preacher man from Port Arthur, Texas. Armed with a baritone that could knock down a brick wall from 20 paces and a Fender Rhodes, he’s unleashing his third solo album (the last with label mates Left Lane Cruiser in tow.) It’s in similar vein to what’s gone before, but this time with a touch more variety.