t’s the subtleties in Bone that make it remarkable. Like the fact that it’s been three years since Tim Booth’s split with his band James. If you’d told me the band was still making records when their hit “Laid” served up flashes of Jason Biggs dancing in his underwear, you would have lost credibility with me. But, alas, it’s true, and thus my ideas of credibility aren’t exactly relevant, are they?

Then, there’s the merit of Bone’s media contact from Spectre actually criticizing the album in the one sheet, with as futile a remark as “quirky percussion fails to hit the spot.” What, and oatmeal would have? It’s an album, not a meal.

So, here’s an attempt to think with my head, and not my appetite.

“Wave Hello” opens the album with guitar licks ala a drunk Johnny Greenwood. That quirky percussion just isn’t, and the song in question is an early standout. Charmingly stumbling into a nuanced revisit of Blur’s “Tender,” the line “Life’s a bitch and I’m her whore,” does well to situate Booth as a mid-level semi-celebrity destined to ride the coattails of earlier achievements.

A few tracks later, “Redneck” is the third straight song with a rapid dabbing beat, now with tablas. The songs all have some sort of depth, however in many cases it’s because they’re too many hands in the pot. With Booth co-writing every song on the album, his partners seem to be trying too hard to fill the album with cute little nods and licks that they lose focus. It’s something Booth himself is entirely intent on, and in the process he’s secured a spot in history: he doesn’t think twice about name-checking Bill Gates in an ironically titled song sung by a one-hit wonder veteran comeback kid, who suddenly has such profound insights into modern life that the entire album reads like the wittier side of most emo bands.

Translation?

Booth is least likeable in his use of kitschy personal criticism word play masquerading as deeper truisms. All of them are stuck standing by an image of themselves that their critics would laugh at, all the while believing that they know exactly why. Where the songwriting at times reaches the cusp of being effective personal storytelling, it doesn’t have the autonomous realism that most celebrated folk tellers rely on.

“Love Hard” is a groovy jam of a number with what sounds like backwards talking in the third verse. Volume swells throughout and chunky riffage in the fade out reminds of “Planet Telex,” which leaves you believing that maybe this whole brit-pop referencing theme isn’t just a play to ensure relevance, and instead is an honest attempt at experimentation.

The strings in “Discover” help set the song as an obvious stand-out. Here the songwriting is effective and witty “I’ve been the Nazi and I’ve been the Jew / I’ve been the user and now I am used to recover / Those who wish to discover / Who I am.” This time the production games are undoubtedly tired as the echoes on the word discover, complete with background echo and extra vocals on the repeated “who I am” feel more like a bad Cher gag than an interesting effect.

The rest of the album tapers off. More studio games; some pleasant, like the acoustic strumming coming in for the second half of “Falling Down,” some that make the songs sound like out-takes from Alanis Morisette albums. “In the Darkness” brings the line “My ailment thoughts can’t penetrate your iPod with foreplay / Sex is fucking with my mind it drives me down the line,” and the “relevance” hypothesis gains steam with Booth butchering the Stooges on “Eh Mama.”

Throughout the album, every achievement seems dwarfed by something done ages ago by someone else, or simply more virtuosic efforts. Bone would probably sound a lot better with a few less songs, and if the focus wasn’t so much on the mediocre interplay between overdone instruments, and on experimenting with new and different textures. Sing-song choruses just aren’t the same outside of retro night.