After the band's five studio albums (and two soundtracks, sundry compilations and numerous live records), expecting a radical stylistic departure from Tindersticks is a little like expecting the Mona Lisa to be wearing something other than that inscrutable glimmer of a smile: it's not going to happen, and you wouldn't really want it to.

Most bands don't have a single idea in their entire careers; Tindersticks have made a career out of refining and perfecting one brilliant idea. There are dusty strings, there is mournful strumming, there is the exposition of longing by moonlight.

There is the regulation spoken-word track, in this case a one-chord jam with words by the late playwright Sarah Kane that perhaps need more careful enunciation.

There is the regulation duet: the endearingly unromantic Sometimes It Hurts, with husky Lhasa de Sala. Often extraordinarily beautiful - especially in uneasy opener Until the Morning Comes, sung by violinist Dickon Hinchcliffe, and in the magnificent orchestral storm of My Oblivion - this album provides the comforts of an old friend.