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Around the time of their 2003 album Dead Letters it seemed as though The Rasmus might make their long-awaited global breakthrough. Instead, lacking anything to eclipse the heroic single In The Shadows, the Helsinki quartet went back to being as popular as Karelian pies at home.

Fuelled by a five-year gap since 2012’s self-titled album and by California-based frontman Lauri Ylonen and fellow founder Pauli Rantasalmi’s divorces, for all its lyrical bleakness (‘I know it’s softwareuiphraseguid=“30562613-f777-4417-aebd-ae8e25158bd2”>SOFTWAREmark” gingersoftwareuiphraseguid=“30562613-f777-4417-aebd-ae8e25158bd2” id=“b834f3c2-31b9-4307-bb6d-fa56cca78035”>gonna get worse,’ Ylonen sighs on Nothing), Dark Matters never mopes musically. SOFTWAREmark” gingersoftwareuiphraseguid=“9858f91b-2795-4a38-b68f-8069b6d3a242” id=“7e34d8d9-933b-4fdd-904f-279f025f10e0”>Wonderman is an explosion of spiralling verses and fist-pumping, multi-coloured choruses; Empire is deliciously twinkle-toed and Paradise, all buzz-saw bass, piano interludes and hooting backing vocals, shows just how effectively The Rasmus have honed their craft.

As well as Classic Rock, John Aizlewood currently writes for The Times, The Radio Times, The Sunday Times, The i Newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and Mojo amongst others. He’s written four books and appears on television quite often. He once sang with Iron Maiden at a football stadium in Brazil: he wasn’t asked back. He’s still not sure whether Enver Hoxha killed Mehmet Shehu…