Seriously, though – how do they do it? How do Brit rockers Cats In Space keep coming back, year in, year out, and delivering the goods with barely a misstep along the way?

I’ve thought long and hard about this question. Especially, lately, whilst treating my neighbours to advance listening parties of the band’s latest full-length offering, Time Machine. None of them, to my knowledge anyway, are fans of seventies pomp rock, but I’m yet to receive a single complaint after long exposure to this album’s eponymous opening track, which is surely the pompest piece of pomp these ears have encountered in some while – so the band must be doing something spectacularly right. With glittering, twittering keys that bring tears to the eyes and memories of names like Starcastle to the front of the mind (there’s a big dollop of Styx going on too but, nerd that I am, I prefer to dwell in the lesser known reaches of rock history), this is truly spine tingling stuff, and the absolute perfect way to kick off an album – bring us more, dammit!

And of course, they do; But, this being Cats In Space, they do it across breathtaking spectrum of sounds and shades as the album unfolds. I’m not going to break down every track forensically – you’ll want to do that for yourselves when the album comes out in a month or so… But I am going to point out that, in the modern era, nobody can pull off a full blown power ballad with quite the amount of chutzpah that these blokes summon up on best in show effort Crashing Down. Damien Edwards gives another of ‘those’ performances on this track, the sort of performance he peels off seemingly effortlessly every time he come in to bat for the Cats; It’s harder than that, of course, but my he makes it sound easy…

Occam’s Razor (Not The End of The World) sees the whole band pulling together to produce a raucous tribute to The Who, with rhythm section Steevi Bacon (drums) and bassist Jeff Brown leading from the back with superbly co-ordinated playing; It’s easy to concentrate on the men at the front, but the engine room puts in a stalwart shift throughout Time Machine, providing the base (and the bass, natch) on which everything builds.

And here’s keyboarder Andy Stewart leading the way on short interlude Ivory Anthem, a lip-moistening amuse-bouche that’ll have Magnum fans grinning from ear to ear, especially as the track morphs into rocker Run For Your Life via the gift of some muscular riffage from Greg Hart and Dean Howard; this is proper music, make no mistake. Music that echoes the past, for sure, but music that still maintains it’s own identity and relevance in an increasingly wretched century. There aren’t that many reasons to smile at the moment, which makes the emergence of another album from the Cats something to celebrate all the more.

And that, at it’s heart, is what the music of this band is all about – celebration. At the end of this album the band take on covers of two of my favourite songs of all time – No Regrets by The Walker Brothers and Music by John Miles. Of course, this could go horribly wrong for all concerned when such long-held emotions are stirred, but if you’re not standing atop a piece of valuable furniture by the end of the latter, bellowing along with the band whilst your trousers flap haplessly around your ankles, you’re a better man (or Woman) than I – CIS, at their best, can do that to you. And there’s an awful lot of Cats in Space at their best on Time Machine. (And I haven’t even mentioned the solo and Edwards’ singing on No Regrets…)

Time Machine releases on October 25th.