Jordan Red – who take their name from the clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson and the concept of ‘taking the red pill’ from The Matrix – have some high falutin’ concepts and ideas they’d like to get across on new album Hands That Built The World. And, by harnessing the power of epic choruses, muscular guitars and, it has to be said, pretty good songwriting, they leave a pretty good early impression on the listener after just a couple of listens to this interesting album.

I’m not sure who they are trying to appeal to here, but quite frankly I don’t really care as I’ve never been much of a message person. I like my metal to hit me at a visceral level rather than a mental one for the most part, and luckily for shallow old farts like me tracks like the title song and Freak Show do just that – and they do it bloody well.

You’ll recognise the vocals instantly I suspect – New Device‘s Daniel Leigh is one of the better throats to be produced by the UK in the last decade or so – and here, in tandem with guitarist and co-founder Dan Baker he sings the absolute bejaysus out of a set of songs which are never less than engaging and very often downright appealing. Polished to a high sheen by producer Romesh Dodangoda, the big rock dynamics of Spilling My Blood and Beautiful Monsters sound ready made for radio and, perhaps more pertinently given the subject matter of the material at hand, World Domination…

Baker has a nice modern feel to his playing – his mixture of Tremontiesque rhythmic punch and Morelloish lead tweaking is surely what rock radio is crying out for, if rock radio is still a thing – and if melodically-inspired, ethically-driven hard rock rocks your particular world then Jordan Red might just be the new band you’ve been looking for. Worth a punt.

Hands That Built The World releases on November 11th.