Paul Draper

★★★ Cult Leader Tactics KSCOPE. CD/DL/LP

Former Mansun leader’s second solo album; a satire on self-help manuals.

Fascinated by 21st-century mini-Machiavellis, Paul Draper wrote a fictitious self-help parody, called it

Cult Leader Tactics and used extracts from it as lyrics to the LP of the same name. Wittily cynical, he tackles the music industry on the title track (“climb the greasy ladder… monetise these classics”), career ruthlessness on Dirty Trix (“be a moral-free zone”) and the lockdown on Omega Man, his collaboration with Steven Wilson. Strings drench the airy instrumental interlude Cult Leader Tricks In E-Flat Minor, and a 266-strong fan choir graces the standout Lyin’ ‘Bout Who U Sleep With. Elsewhere, though, for all the adventurousness of the project, he’s musically quite conservative, often evoking Tears For Fears and, on Everybody Becomes A Problem Eventually, Duran Duran. Still, as guides to being an awful person go, he’s hit the mark.