The Oliver Twist Manifesto

Luke Haines is grumpy, arrogant,

sarcastic, aggressive and a complete genius.

A mere six weeks after bringing us the Christy Malry’s Own Double Entry soundtrack, the Auteur-in-chief is back with a concept album about the evils of the entertainment industry. Nothing remarkable there, except that the Londoner wields his scalpel with the sort of cold malice that only Morrissey, perhaps, has managed in recent years.

Blessed with one of the great non-singing voices, Haines is joined in the studio by nothing more fancy than a fuzzbox, drum machine and John Barry-fixated string section.

Which is all he needs to invest ‘What Happens When We Die’ with its fragile, coming apart at the seams beauty. Never the most upbeat of lyricists, Haines goes to his darkest place yet with couplets like, “I remember your father as a ghost/Not an old man diagnosed with cancer/10 weeks later lying in a hospice bed/Surrounded by loved ones.”

‘The Spook Manifesto’, ‘Death Of Sarah Lucas’ and ‘Christ’ do little to lighten the mood, with the latter finding Haines offering himself up for media crucifixion.

While much of his work is rooted in the ‘70s, ‘Mr & Mrs Solanas’ finds him borrowing a lazy trip hop shuffle from Massive Attack. Who, methinks, would be an ideal choice of outside producer if Haines ever gets over his control freakery.

The good news is that there’s even better fare on offer, with ‘Oliver Twist’ offering up a Malcolm McLaren-esque take on (un)popular culture, and ‘Discomania’ getting all male menopausal with references to “having sex to ‘Kids In America’.”

The miserable git’s gone and done it again!