AA Bondy has made a new album, and the good news is it’s not completely built from old, re-hashed styles. This time round the singer/songwriter digs deeper, letting his soul guide the music rather than his overt influences. His days of emulating Dylan and the great American folk textbook, which were admittedly still pretty good, are left on the roadside.

Much here is like a late-night stroll through nostalgia, unwinding with a warm production and wayward delivery that somehow finds its way home. Opening with the almost hypnotic The Heart is Willing is a statement of intent, the song keeping to a fast-walking bass-line and back-beat for the duration. Bondy and his guitar intermittently enter and leave the track as synths start to spill over at the end. It’s followed by the comedown, melancholy Down in the Fire, the singer’s vocal sounding bruised among the loose snares and burnt-out electric guitars.

Bondy seems to have found a dream-like state for much that is here, and his vocal tone and solid song-writing seamlessly lose themselves in the new ambience. There is a deep haze built from keyboards, pianos and varying guitars – it allows the songs to float rather then walk on the well trodden, rootsy ground he knows so well.

This is still Bondy, observing places and people with his stories, delivering them in a melancholic and scarred-by-life fashion. Yet it feels like we have got closer to the man than ever before.