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Taking a leaf out of the Joan Jett/Lita Ford school of chick rock, Cardiffbased Beth Blade and her Beautiful Disasters have done their homework. And they crowdfunded their debut album so successfully that they even got to record some of it at the famed Rockfield Studios, where the ghosts of some of Blade’s illustrious predecessors seeped out of the walls and into the grooves. It helps to raise a fairly standard set of rockers up several notches, aided by Blade’s straining vocals that add a sense of urgency, backing up the steady flow of guitar riffs. But it’s the power ballad Poster Girl For Pain that impresses most, with its original style and delivery. It augurs well for the future.

It’s all summed up on the final, autobiographical Legends Never Die, where Blade discovers her dream while watching MTV at the age of seven. Rock on girl.

Hugh Fielder has been writing about music for 47 years. Actually 58 if you include the essay he wrote about the Rolling Stones in exchange for taking time off school to see them at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1964. He was news editor of Sounds magazine from 1975 to 1992 and editor of Tower Records Top magazine from 1992 to 2001. Since then he has been freelance. He has interviewed the great, the good and the not so good and written books about some of them. His favourite possession is a piece of columnar basalt he brought back from Iceland.