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It took a few listens to James Yorkston’s third album to appreciate it properly but it’s well worth sticking with.

The slow opener ‘Summer Song’, which matches Yorkston’s melancholic photo on the back of the album sleeve is followed up by the forthcoming single from The Year of the Leopard ‘Steady as She Goes’, which grows and grows as a nu-folk ramble on the nature of desire.

‘Woozy with Cider’, with its spoken word vocals and music by Reporter, is everything that Neil Hannon did best on earlier Divine Comedy albums, articulate and witty while retaining a dry, wry, depressive and insomniac edge.

Recorded by Paul Webb, and the sparse modern arrangements are pure Rustin Man, somewhat a master of understated production.

This is a slow burner, and by the end of my third listen I was hooked.

James Yorkston is on tour in the UK throughout October. The Year of the Leopard is released on 25 September, and preceded by the release of the single ‘Steady as She Goes’.