For a man subjected to furious media scrutiny thanks to his conversion to Islam in 1978, Yusuf’s comeback album is as mild as a spring day, as free of controversy as it is of rock’n’roll.

As Cat Stevens, Yusuf was his generation’s James Blunt, soundtracking halls of residence everywhere with Morning Has Broken and Peace Train. After his enlightenment he turned away from music lest it be a “negative infringement” on his spiritual life, concentrating instead on charity work. Yet as a high-profile British Muslim, he also found himself repeatedly in the papers, particularly after 9/11.

Since then, his ascetic stance towards music- making has softened. “Today there are perhaps a hundred and one good reasons why I feel right making music and singing about life in this fragile world again,” he says, and his decision to build bridges through music clearly springs from a decent place. It’s resulted, fittingly, in a decent album, guided by palatable pastel-coloured spirituality and a warm voice that hasn’t been chilled by the passing of time.

An Other Cup is not so much healing as analgesic. The yearning Green Fields, Golden Sands, a song originally intended for 1970’s Mona Bone Jakon, not only has you imagining there are no possessions, but also no excitement. Heaven/Where True Love Goes and Maybe There’s a World would not only like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, but are also studying engineering at a 1970s poly, all well-scrubbed post-hippy earnestness. Whispers from a Spiritual Garden, inspired by the 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi, and the bucolic thrum of The Beloved are the clearest religious moments. But it’s a heartfelt version of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood that provides the most explicit political statement here. While An Other Cup has been written by a man uniquely positioned to comment on the modern age, artistically, it has very little to do with it.

VICTORIA SEGAL

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