Wood has always tempered his winning brand of folk misery with resilience, but on this fifth solo outing the Kent singer mostly sounds defeated. The title track is a glum, if depressingly accurate, portrait of the nation. A version of Jerusalem has none of Blake's Christian optimism, and John Clare's I Am is as forlorn as ever. He perks up for The Sweetness Song, defying "the old Etonian lies" with personal love, and though a new fondness for electric guitar and Hammond organ adds buoyancy to material like A Whole Life Lived, the album too often trades his former wit for bitterness.