The world won’t end. It will keep turning. Generations will come and go. Countries will be formed, broken up and reunified. Love will be won and lost. Passions will consume and be consumed. And in the midst of it all, there will be albums written about all this stuff of life put out by myriad penniless American guitar bands with questionable haircuts and no dress sense. Few will sound as good as this one.

The same applies to everything Joe Pernice has put his finely-honed larynx and well-tuned Fender Telecaster to. From the doom-laden (s)alt-country of the Scud Mountain Boys (in truth, he should have been able to retire on the back of ‘Please, Mister, Please’ alone) to the Pernice Brothers’ debut ‘Overcome By Happiness’ to his remarkable solo albums, Chappaquiddick Skyline and Big Tobacco (or ‘more songs about swine, women and bong’) the Massachusetts-based songwriter has made emotional destitution sound almost desirable.

Exhibit ‘A’ is the opening ‘Working Girls (Sunlight Shines)' which I’m going to pretend has been No. 1 for the past 21 weeks, beating Elton John’s dirty Diana anthem. It has the intoxicating tunefulness of The Byrds, the Fanclub, and The Beatles AT THEIR BEST and the word ‘shine’ hasn’t been sung so sweetly since The Go-Betweens’ ‘Streets Of Your Town’. It’s also the best song about working in an office since Brian’s ‘We Close 1-2’ (keep up at the back!).

Next up is the single, ‘7:30’, which makes the previous song sound like a sack of shit. Insomnia, existential angst and the post-relationship void: it’s all here and with an incredible Beach Boys ‘ba-ba-ba, three ba’s full’ pastiche as the coda. Nice.

Next is ‘Our Time Has Passed’, a song which shits all over the other two. It’s about, er, existential angst, the post-relationship void and – huzzah! – over-sleeping. The other pertinent thing about this song is it directly steals the riff from the Pixies’ ‘Where Is My Mind?’ – a great riff to nick if you’re going to go klepto.

Getting the picture? I could bore you with a summary of why every track is a masterpiece and why you should quit your job and dedicate your life to making sure that Joe Pernice becomes recognised in the street as the next Buddha. I won’t. All I’ll say is that for no good reason he has named a track after my favourite ever tennis player (Swedish, headband, Zen calm). And for this alone, I salute him.