THE cussed Luke Haines was always his own worst enemy, never playing the pop game despite being a voice as unique as Ian Dury, Richard Thompson or Julian Cope in the British pantheon of rock.

The albums keep piling up, the new solo one about the New York rock scene of the Lou Reed Seventies following the ones about a rock’n’roll badger called Nick Lowe and British wrestlers from the World Of Sport era. Those very words should put a smile on your face, and so will Haines’s dark, satanic, twisted humour on albums number two, three and four from first band The Auteurs as he continues his re-issue programme with reverence for his own work and irreverence for everything else.

Debut New Wave had already waived the rules, and 1994’s Now I’m A Cowboy came with a black-eyed sleeve to match harsh and bitter music of the same impact on all three records, now backed by b-sides, sessions and live material.