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Although Mark Tremonti and his band can’t seem to help but stack up one radio-friendly anthem after another as this album ascends to the very grand finale that is Providence, Cauterize, much like 2012’s All I Was, goes a long way to disproving the idea that Tremonti is this century’s Neal Schon; an expert balladeer who couldn’t find his way around a fuzz pedal.

Tremonti have the zeal of a garage band, plus the skills to easily transpose that fervour to fill stadiums. Though that probably isn’t the point, the opening four songs feel like a punch to the kidneys – even if the title track can’t resist breaking into a melody that will have you reaching for a lighter to wave around – it’s the visceral thrill of the thing that counts.

Flying Monkeys and Arm Yourself are a pair of brawlers taking on all comers and even when the band do scale it back for the magnificent-sounding Dark Trip, it’s still a bleaker and bloodier proposition than Tremonti – the man or his band – have revealed before./o:p

Philip Wilding is a novelist, journalist, scriptwriter, biographer and radio producer. As a young journalist he criss-crossed most of the United States with bands like Motley Crue, Kiss and Poison (think the Almost Famous movie but with more hairspray). More latterly, he’s sat down to chat with bands like the slightly more erudite Manic Street Preachers, Afghan Whigs, Rush and Marillion.