Urban review: The Streets, Everything Is Borrowed

So attuned to life's tragicomic nature that even a visit to the dentist gets him philosophising (see his MySpace blog), Mike Skinner vents his most sentimental feelings on his fourth album. It works much more satisfactorily than the tone he adopted on the Streets' previous release, The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living, wherein fame was messing with his head. The broadly positive Everything Is Borrowed is about the simple things: making the most of life while he's here (the symphonic title track), fancying the latest unattainable girl to cross his radar (the funky Never Give In), deciding that the everyday grind is preferable to ending it all at Beachy Head (On the Edge of a Cliff). Each song functions like a small play, with Skinner inhabiting every deadpan but eloquent character and being chronically unable to resist gags. Each listen reveals more light and shade, reaffirming Skinner's position as one of Britain's truly interesting stars.