Reunions are typically mixed affairs, varying between joyous nostalgia and sobering disappointment. But the Bunnymen’s comeback single, Nothing Lasts Forever (1997), was a shot of reawakened brilliance. If their previous albums fell well short of that renaissance, Siberia’s lead-off single, Stormy Weather, and three quarters of their first album in four years show the Bunnymen can still resemble a force of nature rather than a business arrangement.

Ian McCulloch and the guitarist Will Sergeant have abandoned their attempt to grow up and restored their original agenda: a pulverising, kaleidoscopic beat group (their old producer Hugh Jones is back, too). A widescreen Make Us Blind and a snarling Scissors in the Sand come driving out of the traps, borne on McCulloch’s oblique lyrics (“I’m in the wall/ my silverfishing youth/ swim don’t crawl”) and Sergeant’s Persian carpet of sound. And Parthenon Drive could be an outtake from their 1981 classic Heaven Up Here. Welcome back, again.

MARTIN ASTON