Leonard Cohen used to speak self-deprecatingly about his sole ‘chop’ – that mesmeric, circular minor-key guitar pattern deployed on so many of his earliest and greatest songs. It was a classic Cohen humblebrag, the implication being that, in popular music, practical competence at just one thing was acceptable – but any artist with multiple ‘chops’ was to be viewed with great suspicion.

The slightly strange notion that anyone peacocking their technical mastery is covering up for some other inadequacy – usually a lack of heart or, worse, of ‘authenticity’ – has found widespread acceptance in the field of music criticism over the years. It’s hard to think of another art form where being very good at what you do is regarded as a negative, but then rock discourse, particularly in the UK, loves to fetishise the idiot savant. Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing – or, at least, doesn’t make for good copy.

Chris Robinson sings like a man tied to the stake with fire lapping at his feet

Well, be warned: the Black Crowes have more ‘chops’ than a black belt in Shotokan. They are a ridiculously proficient rock-and-roll band – albeit one beamed in from around 1972. Strictly in terms of their retro-centrism, you could make a case for them being the American Oasis. Shamelessly derivative and in thrall to a romanticised golden age, they could play the lead band in Almost Famous without any major adjustments.

But while Oasis paid homage – let’s be kind – to the brittle, non-swinging snap of 1960s British rock and pop, the Black Crowes are in love with groovy rock ’n’ roll and R&B, with flashes of psychedelia, krautrock, country and soul. Put the Faces, the Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses in a blender and you wouldn’t be far off.

There is another Oasis parallel. At the heart of both bands is a volatile sibling rivalry which at first raised sparks, before setting the whole barn on fire. In the case of the Black Crowes, the toxic relationship between singer Chris Robinson and his brother, guitarist Rich, eventually caused the band to break up for nearly half a decade. The pair set aside their differences to reunite in 2019.

Now comes the first album of new songs in 15 years, and it’s as though they’ve never been away. It seems that being out of time doesn’t matter so much when your entire shtick is pillaging the past – your own, as well as everyone else’s.

Happiness Bastards is clearly modelled on the best Black Crowes album, the magnificent The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, released in 1992. This feels like volume two, in its mix of loose, raucous rockers and bruised country-blues ballads. The funky strut of ‘Wanting and Waiting’ is like every Black Crowes song compressed into four minutes, a chop-laden plateful of scalding riffs, Hammond organ, roadhouse piano, slide guitar and gospel backing singers. ‘Bedside Manners’, ‘Follow the Moon’ and ‘Dirty Cold Sun’ are similarly archetypal. There are occasional digressions. ‘Flesh Wound’ is almost pop, late-Eighties R.E.M. set to a Motown snap. The closing ‘Kindred Friend’, with huffy-puffy harmonica, builds to resemble a Cali-tinged ‘Champagne Supernova’.

Chris Robinson has chops too. He sings like a man tied to the stake with fire lapping at his feet, animated by a series of righteous grudges, cod-mystic wisdom and dark comedowns. He throws a punky snarl at ‘Rats and Clowns’ and a lovesick cowboy croon over ‘Wilted Rose’. It’s quite absurd, of course, but the Black Crowes play it all with a straight face and are good enough to get away with it. This is a band that knows exactly what it does best and exactly how to do it. Weirdly, they sound less anachronistic now than they did in 1991. Post-streaming, the past looms more presently than ever: everything is old and new all at once.

There is another strain of American songwriting so easeful, so apparently mild-mannered that one can make the mistake of believing that it is both effortless and somehow insubstantial. Think of James Taylor, Carole King, John Prine and Paul Simon at his most gentle. Slipping between the cracks of rock, folk, blues and country, this music is essentially conversational.

The multiple Grammy-winning Kacey Musgraves explores that terrain on her sixth album, a litany of old break-ups, new romance and mid-thirties reckonings. She inhabits it convincingly. ‘Cardinal’ hits a sweet spot of Greenwich Village melancholy, à la ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’. The title track is a lovely little shuffle about shucking off a bunch of bad habits. If Deeper Well could sometimes benefit from an energy boost – the pretty, new-love euphoria of ‘Anime Eyes’ feels underpowered – Musgraves displays a fluent grasp throughout of a subtle American vernacular.