By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

Tracklist: Can’t Get Next To You; Favourite Kind Of Idiot; I Want The Job; Sad Songs And Lawsuits; She Ain’t Pretty; One Eye Open; Send In The Clowns; Do Not Ask Me; Don’t Lean On Me; Jet Black Sky; The Whisky Did; Before Before; Good For The Bees; Go Upstream; A Son Of A Father

We 1st saw Heaton live at Aldershot’s West End Centre with his 2nd band The Beautiful South as chart-topper Song For Whoever was released in 1989.

• Read on for reasons including where to see Heaton on tour where tickets are less than £40 each

We were reminded of this, his debut band The Housemartins, quite how many female collaborators he’s had and so many memorable songs over a recent fabulous retrospective BBC2 look at his 40-year career.

2026 is the 40th anniversary of the release of debut Housemartins album London 0 Hull 4 and an apt time for this 11th solo album, including those with the brilliant Jacqui Abbott, to be unleashed.

You may already be familiar with the singles Favourite Kind Of Idiot and Sad Songs And Lawsuits. The former a jaunty reminder that this album is produced by Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie, who tours arenas with Heaton this autumn, and the latter an example of the country and western-inspired pop this singer’s been releasing across his career.

Who else would write a lyric like: ‘But here comes the man who put the D-I-V in D-I-V-O-R-C-E.’?

But it’s not just the singles that are worthy of mention. On One Eye Open we get a sense of Heaton’s politics with its reference to ‘Heatongrad’. It’s immediately followed by Send In The Clowns which appears to refer to the far right mess England currently finds itself in.

Heaton’s always had an appetite for alcohol and the trouble it can bring and The Whisky Did is a compelling exploration with collaborator Rianne Downey giving as good as anyone as she muses over hitting the Gordon’s.

It’s her lead vocal on I Want The Job, about seeking careers advice in school about looking after a young woman, which is perhaps the strongest thing here.

Heaton hasn’t had a top 40 hit since This Will Be Our Year with The Beautiful South in 2005 but it’s certainly not for both trying and deserving.

Particularly strong is the c-bomb-filled closer A Son Of A Father which muses on the merits or otherwise of a particularly Scrooge-like man.

It’s an accusation which could never be levelled at Heaton who’s keeping gig ticket prices below £40 on his current tour.

Jenius? Quite probably.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Paul Heaton Tickets 
• Have you seen Paul Heaton before and what did you think of it? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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