Those titles flow together so seamlessly that you might assume this release had been conceived as a single entity, but it's actually a compilation of three albums plus assorted EPs and oddments. The songs seem very much of a piece, too, with little in their colourless, lugubrious vocals and interchangeable synth-pop backings to distinguish tracks dating from 1997, 2002 or 2013. It's traditional for albums by Stephin Merritt – who writes all the lyrics for Future Bible Heroes, but largely leaves the music to keyboardist-producer Christopher Ewan and singer Claudia Gonson – to be set against his masterpiece, the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, and found wanting. In this case, what's missing is the tonal variety, melody and lightness of touch needed to lift Merritt's songwriting from a quagmire of arch ennui. The handful of exceptions are exquisite: Losing Your Affection, whose overblown sentiment is set to an impossibly catchy tune; But You're So Beautiful, cascading with emotion; I'm a Vampire, triumphant in its absurdity. Take away that buoyancy, however, and the songs drift by in a listless drone.