SAINT Etienne’s first studio album since 2005 does exactly what it says on the tin: words and music in union, working perfectly without a seven-year hitch.

Given the smart London trio’s new elder statesmen role, it has a rosy nostalgic hue, warmly recalling days of innocent discovery of Peter Gabriel’s Genesis, Postcards Records and Dexys on the opening Over The Border, where Sarah Cracknell talks of all her yesterdays in honeyed tones. Peter Wiggs and Bob Stanley’s keyboards are delightfully mellow, their pop nous and elegant electronica timelessly infectious.

By contrast, Paloma Faith has inexplicably jettisoned retro and her sense of fun, her strongest suits. Apparently, she has been reading Milan Kundera’s Immortality, and it’s the kiss of death for the Hackney blues and soul singer, who asked Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful? in 2009. Nothing beautiful is here in Nellee Hooper’s overwrought production of bloated ballads and dull disco, while Faith’s idea of truth is clichéd and self-pitying. This loss of Faith is a shame, a waste, a fall from grace.