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It’s rare when a new group emerges that’s so finely honed, so perfectly polished, and so outrageously talented that they already seem like the finished article and you have to double-check they haven’t actually been around for 20 years.

With the instantaneous appeal of AC/DC and the towering, multi-lingual prowess of Rainbow at their Live In Munich peak, Scorpion Child are nothing less than a heavy-riffing behemoth that takes the current glut of guitar-slinging retro-copyists and punches them through the pavement.

Emerging from the primordial goop of the Austin, Texas psych-rock scene, their nine-track opening salvo is ferocious, irresistible and utterly magnetic. Think Wolfmother but cooler, or Soundgarden if they loved their U.F.O. Polygon Of Eyes is a venue-wide shout-along waiting to happen, Salvation Slave a doe-eyed ballad that gets kicked in the teeth by the straightahead bombast of follow-up Liquor.

Far from the self-aware, painfully predictable sounds currently getting signed by fashion-conscious labels with reckless abandon, Scorpion Child are the real deal, and this debut is love at first listen. Get involved.

Alexander Milas is an erstwhile archaeologist, broadcaster, music journalist and award-winning decade-long ex-editor-in-chief of Metal Hammer magazine. In 2017 he founded Twin V, a creative solutions and production company. In 2019 he launched the World Metal Congress, a celebration of heavy metal’s global impact and an exploration of the issues affecting its community. His other projects include Space Rocks, a festival space exploration in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Heavy Metal Truants, a charity cycle ride which has raised over a million pounds for four children's charities which he co-founded with Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood. He is Eddietor of the official Iron Maiden Fan Club, head of the Heavy Metal Cycling Club, and works closely with Earth Percent, a climate action group. He has a cat named Angus.