Formats are second nature to TV: the BBC and Eagle Rock’s Classic Albums will run and run. Like all formats, there’s always the risk that the medium becomes the message, and content suffers under the weight of form. But Classic Albums at least avoids the BBC’s slavish reliance on presenters, and makes possible programmes that draw the viewer in closer than when everything is mediated by the wall-to wall ego of an expert or celeb.

Peyroux made her name by channelling the sultry sensuality and soul of Billie Holiday and breathing new life into well-known songs written by others - notably Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen.She still brings enchantment to covers, but has increasingly found her own distinctive voice, without losing that element of sensual magic - those long drawn-out notes - inherited from the great Lady Day.

Dress each of the band in the same clothes. Stand them in a line outside the EMI headquarters building on Manchester Square. Get the taller ones with glasses to stand at either end of the row. Put the other taller one in the middle. Have the pair of less tall ones – who could be twins – stand between the taller ones. Symmetry and uniformity duly achieved, take the promotional photograph.

There’s undoubtedly a memorable film to be crafted from the life of guitar legend and grand old survivor Eric Clapton – for instance, Melvyn Bragg made a very good South Bank Show about him in 1987 – but the longer this one goes on, the less it has to say. Nor is it obvious why it has been made now.

Gota Fría, or “cold drop”, is a Spanish weather phenomenon associated with violent rainstorms, when high pressure has caused a pocket of cold air to dissociate itself from the warmer clouds. Meteorologists, please excuse my basic and probably erroneous interpretation; the point here is that any person who’s experienced mental ill-health will likely relate to the idea of a sudden dip in temperature, a torrential downpour, and the accompanying isolation.

“There’s a rhythm in the air around Memphis, there always has been,” Carl Perkins once said.

Hosted by Jazz FM presenters Chris Philips and Jez Nelson on UNESCO’s International Jazz Day, rising stars and international icons were honoured at the fifth Jazz FM Awards on Monday night.

An album that enchants and surprises in equal measure, Heritage sees US sax player and composer Owen Broder explore the full gamut of American roots music – from blues and Appalachian folk to bluegrass and spirituals – through the prism of modern jazz.

Lisa Halliday’s striking debut novel consists of three parts. The first follows the blooming relationship between Alice and Ezra (respectively an Assistant Editor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer) in New York; the middle section comprises a series of reflections narrated by Amar, an American-Iraqi while he is held in detention at Heathrow en route to see his brother in Iraqi Kurdistan.

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