Richard Hawley - 'Lady's Bridge' (Mute) Released 20/08/07

All off a sudden, the lights go out. When they flicker back to life, your surroundings have switched to a stark monochrome. You blink to adjust your peepers, and notice you’ve been transported to what looks like a painstakingly accurate replica of a Northern working men’s club circa 1962. As thick clouds of fag smoke float through the air, the crooner on stage, shiny of suit and brylcreemed of hair, launches into another grand ballad designed to accompany last orders and the lonesome walk through the rain-splattered streets at the night's end, his quiff practically quivering with the emotion. By now, you're freaking out. “There's nowt to worry about, love,” a voice whispers in soft Sheffield burr. “It’s just the new Richard Hawley album.”

You're probably familiar with the backstory by now. A perennial sideman, Hawley finally steps centrestage to cut a demo of his own songs, discovering he's been in possession of a tremendous voice that immediately invites Sheffield Sinatra quips all those years he's provided guitar back-up for lesser vocalists, most famously with Britpop also-rans Longpigs and Pulp. More impressively, it emerges he’s capable of penning woe-fuelled anthems that not only rewind the clocks some fifty years to the golden era of Elvis, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, but also enable listeners to suspend disbelief for long enough to join him on the trek to the black and white past. After three well-received if low-profile albums, 2005’s sumptuous ‘Coles Corner’ nails the tragic troubadour on a timewarp approach, earning Hawley a Mercury nomination and a much-publicised remark from the eventual winners Arctic Monkeys about how their fellow Sheffield resident was robbed of a gong that was rightfully his.

Now Hawley's back, and for the most part, ‘Lady’s Bridge’ - named yet again after a hallowed location in Hawley's beloved hometown, and filled to the brim with his thematic triumvirate of longing, regret and the lure of the open road - refuses to tinkle with the winning formula of its predecessor. Hitchhiking back to the late 60's in search of inspiration is a standard trick these days, but Hawley buckles the trend by heading once more to the considerably less swinging pre-beat boom part of the decade, with string-soaked results that are a minefield for potentially cringe-worthy embarrassment.