11 tracks Perfect Lovesong Divine Comedy s mainman Neil Hannon has always impressed me as a near-genius songwriter, always ready with couplets that most of today s wannabe serious songwriters would die for and a social and cultural awareness of intelligent astuteness. But it was the quirkiness, that Noel Coward spirit and those baroque, over the top strings, that hooked me.
Regeneration is just that.
A born-again Hannon following the Biblical idea of putting off the old self and putting on a radical, joyous new self. All the talk about Regeneration has centered around the production chair of Nigel Godrich, fresh from his reputation-building work with Radiohead. Little brushes and dabs and artistic musical ingenuity is the order of the day here. Much of Regeneration is beautiful. As original as ever and still quirky, humorous and deep, the lyrics here stay well on the safe side of weird, though for the Comedy this is a risky step into more competitive territory.