★★★★☆
How about an album of big indie singalongs about surveillance capitalism, the rise of the alt right and the significance of the women’s marches of 2017? The Mystery Jets have always been an unusual band — formed by Blaine Harrison and friends at the hippy enclave Eel Pie Island in Twickenham in 2003, they also feature Harrison’s dad, Henry, as an occasional member.
Their masterstroke here is in combining accessible pop-rock with complex moral themes. Petty Drone is fantastic, a Queen-like belter about the ability of algorithms to sell yourself back to you, while the lovely acoustic Campfire Song tells the group’s own story of childhood friends finding their place in the world. It all gives renewed purpose to a much-loved British band. (Caroline