With Brand New Kind Of Madness, Shoctopus bare their muscular tentacles. The 13-tracker is as versatile as it is intense. But it is always powerful. The Dublin three-piece set the tone with the extravagant opening track ‘Raining Down Mayhem’, with its relentlessly catchy riff and thundering drumming. And then they do it again. And again.

The music is a mixture of hard rock and melodic metal and the storming riffs and breakneck solos are certainly not designed to wash over you. Instead, they permeate every pore on the likes of the savvy anthem ‘Too Much Is Never Enough’, the primal ‘The Tempest’ and the deliciously funky ‘Soul Woman’.
The torpedo-like pace slows on occasion, as the trio surface for air. That allows lead guitarist Stavis to take centre stage on the swirling, poignant ‘Aurora’ and the captivating, shape-shifting 15-minute epic ‘Trail Of Tears’. The latter also highlights the versatility of lead singer Charlie Black’s voice which mutates between the smooth and the gritty. Madness has seldom seemed so attractive. Shoctopus have arrived.