Album: Barry Adamson, I Will Set You Free (Central Control)

The arrangements on Barry Adamson's latest album seem more restrained than usual, his jazz-noir ambitions trimmed to a blues-funk palette of bass and drum grooves carrying Hammond organ or piano parts, with just the occasional solo horn part.

It's as if he's decided to reveal the core of his musical character, rather than clothe it in cinematic costumery. Only "Trigger City Blues", with its descriptive bricolage of crashes, telephones and gunshots, pursues that familiar alleyway. Elsewhere, "Turnaround" and "Looking To Love Somebody" are shockingly romantic pop trifles, while crazy jazz piano evokes the desperation behind the fuzz-guitar motorik of "Destination", and the gritty guitar and organ of "I Will Set You Free" underscore its dubious promise: "Bring me your eyes, your plastic little lives, and I will set you free."

DOWNLOAD THIS Get Your Mind Right; Black Holes in My Brain; Destination; Turnaround