Tim Booth, Boston Spa's most famous modern son, is back. Three years after leaving James to concentrate on acting and writing and - I suspect - to chill out in his cool, adoptive home of Brighton, Booth has returned with an engrossing new album.

He refuses to call it a solo record, preferring the word collaboration, but Bone has got his intellectual and musical fingerprints all over it. Wave Hello, the upbeat and catchy opening track featuring a stunning intro, is straight out of the Laid stable, and Discover, with its echoes of Radiohead, is Sit Down for the 21st century.

Down To The Sea is pure mid-1990s James, while Redneck, with its rousing chorus, is a withering indictment of the celebrity game - a game that James never played.

As always with Booth there is a tendency to over-elaborate lyrically, but he manages (as he usually does) to come up with some cracking lines to compensate.

Meanwhile, the beguiling, intricate rhythms make Bone a great record to dance to, even though I'm no dancer. And then there's Tim Booth's voice: rich, warm, expressive and engrossing, it remains one of the finest in contemporary rock.

When James split, there was a good deal of genuine sadness - not only among the band's more loopy, goofy followers, but also those of us who felt James were one of the best bands of the 1990s. Bone should put a smile back on all our faces.

Updated: 09:10 Thursday, June 17, 2004