Having just complained about Dent May being overly arch and insincere I am about to praise an album which is rather arch and definitely very stylised, and I can imagine people feeling that to be a slightly false distinction. There is a cool veneer of old-school indie meets sixties beat combo, but if you’ve ever seen this band live you’ll know that there’s not the slightest distance between them, their music or their audience: they are fucking amazing.

This record has been gestating for some time now, as the Low Miffs rebuilt from something of a personnel shakeup a couple of years ago, started working with Malcolm Ross, and finally pulled together an album of new material after two excellent singles on Art Goes Pop. I confess I was somewhat guilty myself of taking my eye off what they were doing – the world thunders on at pace, and a year below the radar can see people move on pretty quickly, I guess. Then suddenly, this appeared.

I am not yet completely on board with all of the songs; Scarface isn’t really a favourite, but I really like almost everything else. The Man Who Took on Love and Won and Cressida are exuberant pop gems, where Kind of Keen and The Back of Midnight are laid back dive bar lotharios and Mankind is flamboyantly over-the-top, mixing Scott Walker with Franz Ferdinand* to produce a somewhat mental piece of cabaret art rock.

I am still coming to terms with the songs themselves, so for the moment the whole album hasn’t quite crystallised for me, and I am still hearing it as a collection of songs rather than as a single piece of work. It’s a collection of songs I really like though, so I reckon the rest will come with time. And if you have any doubts come and see them live and you will lose them – their album launch is at Cabaret Voltaire on Friday the 26th September.

The Low Miffs & Malcolm Ross – Cressida

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Malcolm Ross & the Low Miffs – Kind of Keen

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*Sorry lads, I know you probably won’t like this, but it’s not far from the truth.