If you want to get right to the heart of Paul Draper, then I’d suggest you get right to the heart of “Cult Leader Tactics”. “U Killed My Fish” is typical of the work that he’s done pretty much all his life, lush sounds, clever lyrics, and sounding totally unlike anything else (as befits a bloke I once read an interview with that said his favourite music was The Beatles, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd, and Dolly Parton). In the outro he lists a load of fish, and then for no apparent reason suggests you “smack my fish up”. After that, with no breaks at all, we are straight into the synths of “Everyone Becomes A Problem Eventually” – so 80s I might as well be at a school disco.

In case you still haven’t worked it out, this is not like anything else you ever heard. Unless you knew his band, Mansun, that is.

It is difficult to overstate just how much Mansun meant to us growing up.  I’d have been 21 or so when “Attack Of The Grey Lantern” came out. Their debut floored me as a rock obsessed kid. We were starting to get a little bit bored of the hair metal scene at that point, I guess and Mansun’s unique way of branching out seemed to work in tandem with our own desire to push the boundaries. ‘98’s “Six” was, looking back on it, our first foray into prog (it’s interesting that “…Tactics” comes out on a label known for that stuff and Steven Wilson is one of the tracks) and barely a week goes by that I don’t think of one of it’s lyrics: “All relationships are emptying and temporary”.

This, very much, feels like a sonic return to those days too. The title track, with its string opening almost bottles the classic sound. The record as a whole is a satire on self-help books and it is not lacking in an acid tongue. “By using cult leader tactics

I’m going to cheat you out of your assets

I’m going to climb the greasy ladder

My personality is massive

So I’ll illustrate with graphics

We’ll rearrange a standard passage

And then we’ll monetise these classics

Until your streaming farm just crashes” goes the chorus on the first track and this is an album with a sharp wit, for sure.

“Internationalle” samples B***s J******n and lays him and Trump to waste as it attacks bellicose popularism, while “Dirty Trix” sees the narrator (and as ever with Draper, it is difficult to see where he ends and fiction starts) opine “and all of my life, I followed all the rules”. You know where that gets you, I guess.

As this is a Paul Draper record (he plays nearly all the instruments too) all of these are wrapped around tunes that are both interesting and catchy. There’s plenty of in-jokes too, and when it all comes together, as it does on the brilliant “You’ve Got No Life Skills, Baby!” this is as stunning as it ever was.

It’s also a pretty incredible endeavour that for all this feels so wide ranging – check the way  the almost primal drums of “Annie” segue into the near post-punk stomp of “Talkin’ Behind My Back” for example – its all over and done with in slightly over 40 minutes. It sprawls, then, but within its confines.

“Omega Man” – the one that Wilson co-writes and appears on –  deals with their experiences of lockdown over a sparse electro backdrop, which explodes into harmony in the chorus. It’s typical of the album in that its challenging, yet accessible all at once. That’s a neat road to go down.

“Lyin’ About Who U Sleep With” floats, as Draper so often did at his best, but with a gut punch: “Are you cringing right now, who are you thinking about as you listen to this, tell me now?” You’re always glad you aren’t who he’s writing about. But goodness me, you should be glad to be back in the cult.

Paul Draper has so much to say it would be almost a crime if he hadn’t put returned to the fray.

Rating 9.5/10