Brinsley Schwarz

★★★ Tangled FRETSORE. CD/DL/LP

The 74-year-old’s second solo album. Best known for the pub rock pioneers who took his name and for stints in The Rumour alongside Graham Parker, whose Love Gets You Twisted is given a run-out here, Brinsley Schwarz has spent much of his recent past as a luthier, while embarking on a belated solo career. Following 2016’s Unexpected, Tangled is a gentle, sweet-natured strum where even the guitar solo on You Drive Me To Drink is unassuming. There’s real loveliness, though. Schwarz’s yearning voice evokes a lifetime of rue, and while Game On is surprisingly lustful for a man enjoying his eighth decade, the fragile Crazy World is the catchiest of a clutch of earworms. Storm In The Hills finds him troubled by mobile phones and is the closest he gets to the chugging pub rock of Brinsley Schwarz the band, but this is late-life renaissance at its most assured.