In the 16 years since his last solo album, Shag Tobacco, former Virgin Prune Gavin Friday has branched out busily. He's worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company; masterminded film soundtracks; and collaborated on Scott Walker and Kurt Weill shows. He's overcome illness, the end of his marriage and turning 50. His beloved Ireland has slumped from hubris to chaos. Catholic, however, chooses to celebrate survival rather than bemoan loss.

Producer Ken Thomas (Sigur Rós, Cocteau Twins) douses the songs (co-written with Herbie Macken) in an orchestral shimmer, the kind of thing Trevor Horn did so well on ZTT Records. If this lends Catholic a hint of retro-polish, there's a grand scale to the results which pulls them out of period detail and achieves the timelessness of the best noir torch songs. From the yearning grandeur of "The Sun & The Moon & The Stars" to the moving, epic finale "Lord I'm Coming" — a gospel tear-jerker infused with the gutter-optimist spirit of Soft Cell — Friday faces midlife regret head-on and ekes out glimmers of personal triumph.