Er, he's always written about sex, extensively. Now that he's middle-aged at least he's being honest (and there's enough wit in there too) about it.

I think old-school Jarvis admirers in the press, and fans, judging from initial reactions on a few different message boards, are pissed-off that he's gone too garage-rock. While it doesn't always come off, it makes for a more interesting album when interspersed with the stuff that's more familiar to the Jarvis we know (Hold Still, Slush, Never Said I Was Deep).

And it's not as if it's come out of nowhere. There were more than enough hints with Relaxed Muscle and The Wyrd Sisters that a looser, ballsier approach would sooner or later manifest itself in his solo work.

I do know that he's going to be sick to death of uninformed interviewers asking him ''Did Albini influence the album what with the heavy sound?" by the end of the promo for the album.

I wish i could just hear this bloody album now! Only one more week to go. I suppose I shouldn't really comment until I've heard it, but, on the grounds mentioned in the above review, I don't see why it should sit uneasily with anyone that Jarvis has made an album about a mid-life sexual crisis. Jarvis is at his very best when writing about the strange, but very human world of sex/love/lust. Why should he stick to 'icy social rage', just because he is over 40 and well- established as an intelligent lyricist? Clearly a lot of this album must have come from right from the heart, which has got to have more of an impact than something written just to show-off how witty he is! And personally I like a bit of garage rock, so I'm open to the prospect of a slightly different sound from Jarvis.

I did find it weird that the writer was taking Jarvis to task for writing about sex. I like lots of loud rock -- some of it produced by Albini -- but it's not really what I look to Jarvis for.