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Despite its austere artwork and general air of DIY grit, Poverty Metal is an astonishingly colourful and esoteric affair. Henrik Palm has a diverse CV including stints in In Solitude and (allegedly) Ghost, but his solo work sounds quite unlike anything else he has done. There’s a magpie-like accumulation of ideas going on here, but somehow it all hangs together. Opener Bully is a scratchy collage of wonky noise and spiky guitars, vaguely redolent of late 70s experimentalists This Heat, but with bittersweet melodies threaded through the chaos. Elsewhere, Sugar is a rumbling, rambling art rock hymn, Given Demon is a shapeshifting, prog-psych concerto, and the sparse and pretty Nihil perfectly sets up the krautrock pulse and hard rock swagger of Nihilist. There is even room for a fuzzed-up, insanely heavy cover of Twisted Sister’s Destroyer. It’s all quite mad, of course, but brilliant with it.

Dom Lawson has been writing for Metal Hammer and Prog for over 14 years and is extremely fond of heavy metal, progressive rock, coffee and snooker. He also contributes to The Guardian, Classic Rock, Bravewords and Blabbermouth and has previously written for Kerrang! magazine in the mid-2000s.