Tindersticks’ ninth album starts in true idiosyncratic fashion, mainman Stuart Staples telling a nine-minute story over plaintive strumming that gradually builds into a dreamlike collage of freestyle jazz before mellowing into an unsettling and unexpected denouement. It’s a startling beginning, but it’s followed by eight equally mesmerising, if altogether different, songs. Experimental and intriguing, it veers from jittery nostalgia (‘This Fire Of Autumn’) to off-kilter tenderness (‘Come Inside’) to subdued but pleasant instrumentals (‘Goodbye Joe’), always retaining a sense of Tindersticks’ wonderful uniqueness.