Band of Skulls have found the previously unknown, perilously small sweet spot between Kings of Leon and the Magic Numbers. This mixture of clean-hitting hard rock and boy-girl harmonies has given the Southampton trio spots on Mustang car ads and Twilight movie soundtracks in the US, success which has been slower at home.

Wow. On record, the slender Canadian comes across as a fairly conventional country singer, lamenting her achy breaky heart (“Dying of Another Broken Heart”) and her own dirty deception (“Little Lie”). It’s not material designed – unlike Bonnie Prince Billy and Jim White – to scare the horses.

After a 15-year hiatus, the "classic" line-up of Dayton, Ohio, lo-fi veterans reformed in 2010 for a year-long tour, culminating in this new album of 21 songs with titles such as "Doughnut For a Snowman".

If Xfm’s festive knees-up truly reflects the station’s character, its male-dominated line-up chafes against most other annual charts and round-ups.

Drums - John Bonham
For the fact that he was such a musical badass, inventive, intense and our drummer, Matt, will have a real problem with me if I pick another drummer that's not Bonham.

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This is the one. You may remember, in 2009, the clamour of critics lauding The Horrors for – shock, er, horror – actually making a good album with their second effort, Primary Colours. I was practically a lone sceptic, sulking and tutting on my own in the corner.

An unlikely success story is recounted in Stephen C Mitchell's patchwork rockumentary.

Just because it was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage doesn't make Wasting Light garage-rock, even if it was captured on analogue tape by Nirvana producer Butch Vig.

Some aspects of the music business can't just be magicked up via the interweb.

The warm-up act was only half joking when they said they'd been asked to play their set twice to fill in as a snow-impeded Jon Spencer Blues Explosion raced across London. More than an hour after they left us, the audience was decidedly tepid. So it was lucky that when JSBX finally turned up, their menacingly synthesised New York sound soon sent the temperature gauges soaring.

It's not rare for performers to burn up in the sudden supernova of success, though one wouldn't have expected it of a band that has built as steadily as Kings Of Leon, from small-scale indie credibility to chart-invading star status.