This week: new records from Kiss, Baroness, Mott The Hoople, Pythia and more…

Kiss come roaring back into focus with their best album in years. Sonic Boom (Roadrunner) not only has a title that threatens you with loud and proud tracks, the reality is as licentious and riff-hardened as you’d hoped for. Think Creatures Of The Night, and you’re not far off.

Pythia might have a member of the Medieval Baebes in the line-up, but Beneath The Veiled Embrace (Golden Axe) proves they’re more than a band with an eye-candy singer. Emily Alice Ovenden is an attraction, but the music has a tearaway goth metal appeal. So ogle the photos of La Ovenden, but listen to the CD as well.

AntiProduct come on like The Wildhearts having swallowed all of Brian Wilson’s happy pills on Please Take Your Cash (White Devil Music). The songs are inspired pieces of twisted and warped pop rock. The sort that have real choruses and deviously classy musicianship. Classy – in a trailer trash kinda way.

In a ‘you’ll believe a man can fly’ fashion, Between The Buried And Me defy gravity and convention on The Great Misdirect (Victory). It’s hardcore, but in a proggie style. Or is that prog rock with a hardcore approach? Whatever, there’s enough brutal smarts to satisfy the most vehement hardcore kiddo, while sufficient dextrous complexity to bring a smile to any progger’s visage.

As Mott The Hoople triumphantly return with a series of shows at Hammersmith Apollo, the inevitable Very Best Of Mott The Hoople (Sony BMG) is upon us. But it’s hard to argue with 20 ultra classics, from All The Way From Memphis to All The Young Dudes. Nostalgia can be better than memories.

Saxon, Accept, UFO, Doro and Rose Tattoo are among the artists on the compilation 25 & Alive (SPV). Really a label sampler, the double CD is a little like the proverbial curate’s egg. It does come with a free sticker – but then that’s not necessarily the main reason to buy this budget blaster.

Marc Carroll is Irish, but has lived in America for several years. So, it’s no surprise that Dust Of Rumour (High Noon) indicates inspirations from Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley and The Byrds. He writes beguilingly creative songs, and isn’t that far removed from current folk-punk pin-up Frank Turner. And he spells ‘rumour’ the correct way!

Baroness have come with something sensational with The Blue Album (Relapse). It has a hard groove, a heavy atmosphere, intense melody and progressive runs that would make even Robert Fripp doff his professorial cap in homage. But, having already done The Red Album, is this some form of long-term Baroness spectrum concept?

The soundtrack for the Taking Woodstock movie (Rhino) is stuffed full of great sounds from some of the finest bands of the late 1960s. The list includes The Doors, Janis Joplin, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Love, Melanie and Canned Heat. A real trip back to ‘69, when a Blackberry was for picking.

Finally, if Linkin Park have always seemed a little trite, then you might find the debut album from Dead By Sunrise more palatable. Out Of Ashes (Warner Bros.) sees the Park’s Chester Bennington getting a little darker and heavier, albeit still with his pop-rock roots showing.

– Malcolm Dome