Chappaquiddick Skyline

I know what you're thinking. How can Joe Pernice possibly follow up the lush, tear-stained masterpiece that was the Pernice Brother's Overcome By Happiness, an album that boasted one of the most ironic album titles in rock history.

Well, he's had a fair stab at it with this teasingly-titled record (vorsprung durch Ted Kennedy?), which although a solo project - his brother Bob being absent from the sessions - still features many of the same musicians who graced Happiness. If such a fate is possible, Mr Pernice's emotional life seems to have deteriorated even more in the intervening year: "I hate my life," he croons on 'Everyone Else Is Evolving', nailing his colours to the mast, colours which range from deepest, darkest blue to light black.

Then there's the wonderfully-titled 'Solitary Swedish Houses', which may be intended as a nod to the movies of sadcore cine king, Ingmar Bergman; its almost obsessive use of lingering minor chords - which is true of the album as a whole - make it the perfect soundtrack to all that stony Scandinavian angst.

If there's a quibble it's that the string section which lifted the desperate sentiments of Happiness to the point where it almost sounded like a celebratory, life-affirming record, is definitely missed. Then again, Chappaquiddick Skyline does gain an intimacy and an immediacy in its relative spareness that its predecessor lacked. And there's no arguing with the superb cover of New Order's 'Leave Me Alone' featured here.

However, the finest song on the new record is 'Hundred Dollar Pocket', which is as good a summation of jilted male self-pity as you are likely to hear: "Do you ever wonder where I am right now?/Do you think we might have made it up somehow/I know there's nothing that I can do/Somebody else is loving you."

Joe Pernice is living proof that the winner does not necessarily take it all; the loser at least gets to make great art.