Figure 8

When Mr Smith went to Washington - or, actually, Hollywood - to perform his Oscar-nominated 'Miss Misery' from Good Will Hunting at the Academy Awards a few years ago, a worldwide audience of sensitive indie mopers cheered at the vindicating incongruity of it all.

More recent conscripts to Smith's lost-generation music club will have thrilled to his stunning, if traditional, reading of the Beatles' 'Because', which closed American Beauty. And, in fact, the phrase 'stunning if a bit safe' neatly encapsulates this polished collection.

Much of Figure 8 was recorded in Abbey Road Studios. There are cameo appearances from the actual piano used on 'Penny Lane'. And the Beatles-isms don't stop there: many of Smith's chord progressions and song constructions are definitely more than slightly Fab, and his gentle four-part 'Ahhh, ahhh' vocal harmonies - not to mention his guitar sound - are uncannily like those which characterise the Abbey Road era.

But, unlike other artists currently flogging records shot through with Beatlemania, Smith uses these reference points as a backdrop, not a substitute, for his highly original complaint-pop muse.

Smith is a cerebral, wryly bitter lyricist on a par with Elvis Costello, if a bit more passive and inward-looking; and examples of his sharp-tongued despondency abound. But with his intricate sentiments delivered via many-layered vocals and lovingly wrapped in such gorgeous arrangements, you have to wonder what magic might have happened if this remarkable talent had let emotional directness have pride of place a bit more often ( . . . as on the rapturous 'Can't Make a Sound' or the frankly amazing 'Stupidity Tries').

But each repeated listen confirms that this is quibbling. Not often do you come across such an extraordinary marriage of wilfully complicated songwriting and pop sensibility. This will be one of the records of the year, and not only among the shoddy-bars-and-bedsits contingent, either.