This is a different effort from the previous 3 albums, although you get hints of things to come at points during Just Enough Education to Perform, the previous album. (Side Note: there was a song on that album called "Mr. Writer" that pretty much guarantees nothing I write about them is important.)

This is a more mature Stereophonics. From "Maybe Tomorrow:"

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home.
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home.

A lot of the previous albums were story songs, stories about ordinary people doing ordinary or not so ordinary things like "Bartender and The Thief," from Performance and Cocktails.

On this album the songs seem more personal, the emotions more immediate, the pains of growing up, the loss that begins to descend on a life and how we deal with that loss. From "Rainbows and Pots of Gold:"

We had some laughs, had some rows
But in the end, the walls came down
You'd like the place I'm living now
It's a shame you can't come around

This album is also a quieter album, musically. The songs, reflecting the mood of the lyrics, slip and slide into you like a sharp knife. There is a consistent edginess throughout that, despite the overall slower tempo of the album, grabs the ear and makes things interesting. "I Miss You Now," sounds like the perfect after midnight drunken phone call to an ex-girlfriend.

There are a couple of songs where they pick it up a bit and you can hear them as crowd favorites live: "Madame Helga," and "High As The Ceiling."

Stuart Cable and Richard Jones provide the setting and give Kelly Jones the space he needs to make these songs happen. Kelly, who writes all the songs, has the late at night acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder cigarette smoldering in an ashtray and pint of bitter in hand kind of voice. In fact, this entire album sounds like it could be performed in small pub under a shared dim spotlight, stage bare except for some slightly stooped bar stools.

Stereophonics are the best band the United States has barely heard of.