Pop-rock mastermind Jamie Lenman’s earned the right to avoid references to his old band, outgrowing his days of graft as a criminally underrated linchpin of the UK post-hardcore scene into a solo artist, and a pretty generous one at that. After 2013’s truly bi-polar ‘Muscle Memory’ – an album of bleak, crushing metal next to an album of thoughtful folk ballads – Lenman has found himself again, along with the swinging riffs and roaring vocals that make him a fearsome onstage presence. New album ‘Devolver’ does pretty much everything right: filthy, hard-edged, funny and melodic at once, an album that shows the likes of Royal Blood how you keep the rock torch burning without using the same old repetitive tricks. Lenman sings “I am irrelevant,” on the title track, and he’s wrong, in a sense: he’s a rock godfather, even if others get the credit and the big hits. In another sense, a sense of irrelevance is Lenman’s freedom to do exactly what he wants to do – and for those of us listening in, that’s the best gift we can get.

Sun 25 Feb, 7.30pm at The O2 Institute, 78 Digbeth High Street Birmingham B5 6DY, £15 seetickets.com