The irony, of course, is that Señor Marco, as Lord Coverdale of Slowpoke used to call him, isn’t following a new direction in any way at all, preferring to stay in his lane of Lenny Kravitz/Stevie Salas-styled funk rock for the major part of his new album. That said, he’s bloody good in that sphere – so why fix what ain’t broke?

Last time we spoke about Mr Mendoza, some four years ago, he was doing much the same thing on his album Viva La Rock; here, however, everything is just so much ‘more’ – the heavy parts are heavier, the funky parts are funkier, the sleazy parts are… you get my drift. And on top of it all, the man seems to have found inner reserves of oomph in the vocal department, giving the whole album a top drawer sheen that we simply haven’t seen before.

At it’s most simplistic, on the AC/DC-styled Scream And Shout, it’s funtime rock n’roll of the old school, as our hero exhorts ‘his boys’ to join him on a weekend of hedonistic pursuits; it’s fun all right – you’d love to be there yourself, don’t pretend otherwise – but it’s only part of the story. The title track fuses The Beatles, Aerosmith and AC/DC again in a complex, ever-changing musical smorgasbord that challenges the listener to keep up, but, as noted, for the most part this is strutting, self-assured nineties-styled funk rock that can’t help but raise a smile and cause untrammelled twitching in the nether regions…

Mendoza, you’ll remember did some time in the Dead Daisies, and tracks like opener Take It To The Limit aren’t too far away from that band’s recent output, but to get to the heart of New Direction you need to look beyond the gonzo rock and dig a bit into what is obviously our hero’s first love: the funk. I Just Can’t Get Over You, for instance, oozes filth from every pore and it’s material like this where Mendoza hits hardest; building on a rock solid bass with rhythm partner Morten Hellborn, featuring some fabulous guitar work from Soren Anderson, this, as John Gorman used to say, is what they – and we – want. Utterly devastating funk rock doesn’t grow on trees these days, but when it does, as here, it’s an undeniably beauteous thing. I’d like to put Mendoza in a room with Richie Kotzen and see what they come up with…

Wonderful stuff, then, and certainly worth some eartime if straight up but funky rock n’roll is your thing.

New Direction releases on September 16th.