Ironically enough for an Irishman, Neil Hannon has always been blessed with an unusually British musical sensibility. The Divine Comedy have always been consistently scholarly, majestic, and somehow polite. ‘Absent Friends’ is timeless, almost Etonian in its bias - from the wry references to Oscar Wilde right down to the polite bell that closes the song. Despite the song’s pastoral bent, it’s a fresh and enchanting offering; the perfect follow-up to the equally masterly ‘Come Home Billy Bird’.