Many hard rock aficionados say that Motörhead’s greatest work was all with the “classic” line-up of Lemmy, drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor and guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke (who died last week aged only 67 - this review was written before that news came through). While there’s no denying their 1976-82 output was storming, Motörhead’s later career contained multitudes of gems that were its match. The band’s guitarist for this period, for 31 years from 1984 until Lemmy’s death, was Phil Campbell. He now releases the debut album by a band he formed with his three sons shortly after his legendary frontman’s passing.

So where was Campbell to go next? Judging from The Age of Absurdity, a return to the classic rock template, but fuelled with Motörhead’s desire for high velocity impact. Campbell is staunchly Welsh, a taciturn individual (I interviewed him once: polite, dryly funny, but making him say anything of consequence was blood-from-stone stuff). He’s also an amazing guitarist, able to inject squiggly blues-lickin’ solos with a furious zest. His sons Todd, Dane and Tyla are up to the task of surrounding him, while Neil Starr, once singer for Welsh rockers Attack! Attack!, is on vocals. They go at it with vim. There’s enough juice to make this more than a post-glory novelty.

They’re at their best on raging rock-punk assaults, somewhere between The Ramones and early Lostprophets, with numbers such as “Skin and Bones”, “Gypsy Kiss” and “Step Into the Fire” roaring out of the speakers. Campbell’s impeccable guitar work provides the centrepiece of some songs – the single “Ringleader” and the tasty harmonica-led blues jam “Dark Days” – while those looking for Motörhead-alike kicks should turn to the rock’n’rollin’ “Dropping the Needle”. Quibbles: too much filler, and sometimes I found myself wishing Starr had a more characterful, less mainstream rock voice (but then sometimes he comes into his own, notably on the epic six-and-a-half minute closer “Into the Dark”).

There’s a straightforward rerun of Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine”, featuring that band’s leader Dave Brock, as a bonus track. It’s OK, but probably more fun live, which is where I suspect this lot come into their own. In the meantime, their debut album is feisty hard rock worth cherry-picking.

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Overleaf: Watch the video for "Ringleader" by Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons

Now that the 40th anniversaries of 1976 and 1977 as the years which birthed punk rock have themselves become history, surveyors of rock’s rich tapestry will inevitably turn to what came next. The year 1978 and what followed punk are easy targets and, in terms of labels, post-punk is accepted as a next wave out of the traps.

Eindhoven art punks Radar Men from the Moon have been around since 2010 with a sound that has knitted together space rock, strange electronics and shoegaze flavours with a psychedelic view point.

In March, Bristol’s Idles drove up and down the country, leaving painfully small quantities of their debut album Brutalism in each independent record shop they went into. The lucky among us who managed to get a first-pressing copy of the beautifully packaged LP felt a part of something small and exciting, something important on the verge of blowing up. Now, lauded by the music press and owners of their own Wikipedia page, it’s fair to say that Idles have well and truly conquered 2017.

You say you want a revolution? Good luck locating one amid the tonally muddled Inside Pussy Riot. The immersive production from Les Enfants Terribles takes audiences on a promenade-style journey through the terrifyingly true story of Nadya Tolokonnikova, the Russian activist who (along with bandmate Maria Alyokhina) was sentenced to two years in a Siberian prison in 2012 after performing 40 seconds of an anti-Putin protest song in a Moscow church.

In 1976, Polydor Records was actively considering signing the Sex Pistols. The label’s Chris Parry checked them out live in Birmingham during August. In September, he had a prime spot behind the mixing desk at the 100 Club’s punk festival from which to consider British punk rock’s figureheads. However, the band’s manager Malcolm McLaren signed them to EMI.

Four albums in, Detroit’s Protomartyr have built up quite a following over the last five years. From the now-hard-to-find No Passion All Technique to Relatives in Descent, their lauded new album, Protomartyr’s precise post-punk has remained as thunderous as it is rich. As part of their current European tour promoting the release of Relatives in Descent, the band have come to the Deaf Institute, one of Manchester’s coolest mid-size venues, to bathe us in its murky waters.