SINCE the curve ball of his psychedelic seventh album, Standing At The Sky's Edge, time has sort of stood still for South Yorkshireman Richard Hawley.
He "broke my leg and ****** my back up", spending four months in a "kind of confinement", unable to move. It made him think about things. A lot. He could have been negative, which would have led to an even growlier guitar album than the last one in 2012.
Instead he concentrated on thinking of the good things, and so Hollow Meadows returns to Hawley's retro Orbison default position, and you won't find many complaining about that.
The guitar electricity is largely switched off as he entirely understandably meditates on ageing and fallibility at 48 and still writes relationship songs to make you jealous of a gift he shares with the Romantic Poets or, more feasibly, Jonathan Richman.
I Still Want You is an instant classic, and we still want Hawley this way.
Richard Hawley plays Scarborough Spa Grand Hall on October 28; Leeds O2 Academy, November 1
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