Gah, I fucking love the Stereophonics. It was a love affair sparked by those beautiful, melody-enriched anthems which stuck to me in the way an overly-citrussed cocktail does to the tongue. Scrape and scrape, but it just hangs there; unwanted and only slightly malleable. _‘Word Gets Around’ _was delightfully instant in a way that you can’t really listen to it that often any more cos it’s just too damn plain; too obvious. Hey, it was their first bite of this lemon and you know what that does to my tongue.

This is a charming return to form after two relative disappointments. With enveloping structures that unfurl themselves with every listen; crisp, yet dirty, production to make the glittery trews sparkle even brighter; and above all, better performance. It’s Stereophonics through and through; you just stand there wiggling your ass, stomping your foot, grinning like a tomfool to the newly über-glammed stylings of the wails of that beautiful pixie boy, Kelly Jones. So he’s grown his hair; my sister says he looks “well gay”; yeah, whatever.

Get in that fucking *stadium *and dance to this, baby. The poor boy’ll be too far away for you to diss him properly.