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This is how you open an album. Like Sabbath covering The Stooges’ TV Eye, Lord Of The Sky is a sideburn-grabbing call to action from bristly German trio Kadavar.

Although they barely come out of the red for the superb stoner fuzz stomp Last Living Dinosaur, Berlin is Kadavar 2.0; cleaner, more inventive production, broader palette (although still 70s-centred), stratospheric energy. And if you want hooks, they got ’em – Christoph Lindemann’s psychedelic riffola has been drop-kicked by the pithy groove of new bassist Simon Bouteloup, with welcome preposterous results (Stolen Dreams is just ridiculous).

Songcraft has leapt on apace, too, with linear rock progressions ditched in favour of folk-rock pomp on Old Man, MC5 rowdiness on Filthy Illusion, and heavy psych bluster on Into The Night. See The World With Your Own Eyes might even be the best post-SF Sorrow Pretty Things song the Pretties never wrote.

If you’re planning a city break, Berlin is worth the trip.

Classic Rock 215: New Albums H-Z

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Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer who joined Kerrang! in 1999 and then the dark side – Prog – a decade later as Deputy Editor. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!) and asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit. Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London and can be occasionally heard polluting the BBC Radio airwaves as a pop and rock pundit. Steven Wilson still owes her £3, which he borrowed to pay for parking before a King Crimson show in Aylesbury.

Kadavar: Berlin

If it ain’t stiff, it ain’t worth a fick.