Album: Tindersticks, Falling Down a Mountain (4AD)

Stuart A Staples is a man whose distinctive nasal Nottingham mumble merges with that of Harold Wilson with every new Tindersticks record. Falling Down a Mountain, remains on familiar Nashville-on-Trent ground.

After all, a band who began by expressing twilight ennui have nowhere else to go. It's a sombre thing, but somehow warm with it. Duetting with Mary Margaret O'Hara on the sweet Memphis-soul-flavoured "Peanuts", you could even call Staples an optimist, albeit, like Wilson, an optimist who carries a raincoat.