While the official confirmation has yet to be made, it's common knowledge by now that Graham Coxon has finally quit Blur for good. And if the precise reasons remain obscure for now, the material on the temperamental guitar maestro's fourth solo album leave no doubt about the severity of his unhappiness: just about every one of these 13 songs is concerned with loneliness, lost love and Coxon's lack of faith in himself. Somehow, however, he's fashioned this relentlessly gloomy material into what's probably his most enjoyable solo effort to date, eschewing the thrash-rock that marred previous outings in favour of a pop-folk style that recalls some of Blur's finest moments. Shot through with the man's endearingly fragile humanity, The Kiss Of Morning is virtually impossible to dislike. But there's no getting away from the fact that Coxon's voice is on the wobbly side, and inevitably this feels more like a whimsical side project than a fully-fledged album in its own right. You can't help wishing that he and his former band would patch up their quarrel before they realise how infinitely poorer they are without each other.

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