The thing is, Alabama 3 are true believers, in their radical politics and loose outsider stance but most of all in the healing and transcendent power of music. Cynicism just doesn’t get you this far down the road, they’re just not earnest, or solemn. Because acid house and country music aren’t either.

The results are pretty much exactly what you expect, an abrasive industrial hellscape with screaming.

Yaang are fully carbonated and unnecessarily caffeinated, they have a short attention span, a drum machine and at least one dubious moustache.

Essentially Rattle is all rhythm and chant and yet it is totally unlike that shaking hoodoo mania thing, completely different to all the spooky drones and incense types.

As always with Hecker it’s emotional but rich and complex, allowing for multiple possibilities.

End Of The Middle is another extraordinary achievement for Dawson (or Rich), it’s compassionate, smart and unfailingly human.

Great from top to bottom, front to back. Honestly, while it joins an impressive discography it’s up there with his very best.

At times the whole album feels suspended between deep breaths at the edge of sleep.

Their ‘parole jazz’ party is a wild affair of drum rumble, filthy bass and squalling sax. Overpowered by skronk.

Heart-thumping skronk punk belters descending into manic twisted noise. It’s tremendously good fun.  

Not the sort of band to play the hits exactly but also undoubtedly, and perhaps essentially, an incredible live experience.

It’s loud, dumb, weird, greasy, noisy and exciting. It hits the spot.

Drones and samples, bass distortion, jazz drums and industrial grind. They don’t really do repeating phrases or loose improvisation. It changes and surrounds.

Stripped back instrumentation paired to punchy structural minimalism for a sound that is both urgent and intimate.

Picking up from the late 90s but still sounding vital and current.

Sunday at Supersonic: stages full of smoke and a long soak in folk. . . with a bouzouki and balloons to finish.

A night floor filler that lurches around the hall, arms raised, wild happy drunk from this stone faced weirdo party band.

The day begins with the disappointing news that Atlanta hardcore team Upchuck. . . aren’t going to make it, tipping today’s line-up even further in favour of duos. Quite a selection today, all making a heck of a racket with just two people. The rise of the duo intrigues me; are the reasons technological, logistical, financial or even cultural?

Friday includes the sitting room of a haunted cottage, the incantations of Welsh witches, fluoro-badgers in hoodies roaming the streets, noise-rock anime super heroes, and samosas for starters.

I suggest you disregard “I was there” weakeners and enjoy it, it’s an unexpectedly fun gift in terrible times.

Well now, this year’s Supersonic Festival will be sat in your lap and licking your face before you can learn to pronounce Bríghde Chaimbeul’s name. Still a handful of tickets left if you’re lucky; if you’re already set then it’s time to start circling stuff on the running order and wondering who owns a bag so small you couldn’t fit an A4 book in it.