The year’s must-have albums made easy! Check out the other 3 parts here!

Dream Theater
Black Clouds & Silver Linings (Roadrunner)
“If it’s succinct and traditional you want, then there are more than enough great rock records out there that will provide it. If you crave a musical journey with a few more twists, turns and unexpected hairpin bends, Dream Theater remain masters of the form.”
(Dom Lawson)
Hear the album here!

Hysterica
Metalwar (Crong)
“Every so often an album comes along that renews your faith in no-nonsense heavy metal. Right out of the blue, Swedish all-girl band Hysterica have made a record that ranks with Manowar’s Battle Hymns and, yes, even Judas Priest’s British Steel as a bona-fide classic.”
(Geoff Barton)
Work out which one of Hysterica you fancy – and listen to the album an’ that – here.

Clutch
Strange Cousins From The West (Weathermaker)
“It’s unlikely that Strange Cousins From The West is going to make Clutch a global concern any more than anything else they’ve done in their career, but for those who have surrendered to their seismic sorcery, summer just got a lot more heavy.”
(Catherine Yates)
Listen to the album – and, er, work out which member of Clutch you fancy – here!

The Mars Volta
Octahedron (Mercury)
“A sporadically gorgeous and quietly unsettling rock record, Octahedron is the invigorating sound of forward motion.”
(Dom Lawson)
Listen to the album here!

Joe Bonamassa
The Ballad Of John Henry (Provogue)
“2006’s You And Me was Bonamassa’s best yet. 2007’s Sloe Gin was his best yet. And so is 2009’s The Ballad Of John Henry. You can’t argue with that.”
Hugh Fielder
Here a track from the album here!

Diemonds
In the Rough (www.myspace.com/diemonds)
“As the title suggests, In The Rough is neither pretty nor polished – thank gawd. It’s a scuzzy, wholly DIY effort that will arrive at your door sweat-stained, bruised, and ready for anything.”
Sleazegrinder
Get it via myspace!

The Dead Weather
Horehound (Columbia)
We actually gave this a luke-warm review in issue 134, but we also gave Green Day a great review and it’s NOT going to make this top 50 (the mag team just don’t agree with our reviewer). As someone who remains unimpressed by The White Stripes but bowled over by The Raconteurs, Horehound avoids the Stripes’ trebly thrash but lacks the songs of the Raconteurs. But it’s not without it’s highlights either: the gothic blues of 60 Foot Tall, Treat Me Like Your Mother and Will There Be Enough Water make it worth the price of admission alone.
(Scott Rowley)
Click here to hear the album and watch the video for Treat Me Like Your Mother!

Robot Lords Of Tokyo
Whiskey Blood & Napalm (Robot Lords Of Tokyo)
“Awash in manly thunder… there hasn’t been this much battle-metaphor mayhem on a death-boogie album since Tank’s This Means War a quadrillion years ago. Louder than a back-firing monster truck, and mountain-scrapingly huge.” (Sleazegrinder)
Listen to it now!

The Parlor Mob
And You Were A Crow (Roadrunner)
“How authentic you find The Parlor Mob probably depends as much on you as it does on them. For hard-nosed vintage Led Zeppelin fans they may come too close to the sacred cow. Those who enjoy this move towards taking the past and opening it up, however, will find them both exciting and comforting – which is quite a trick. They’re ballsy and brazen, but not cynical. And You Were A Crow is never entirely new, but it’s vivid and powerful and it demands attention.”
(Jon Hotten)
Watch them do it live!

Neil Young
Fork In The Road (Reprise)
“Young at his brilliant, wry and radical best.”
(Neil Jeffries)
Watch the Fork In The Road video!