The Divine Comedy's Regeneration caught a lot of people by surprise. After cleaning house and starting with a new band, and enlisting Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Regeneration was a notable detour from the witty, infectious musings of their previous canon. Neil Hannon, who has effectively always been the Divine Comedy (Joby Talbot's contributions notwithstanding) has returned with yet another new band, some special guests (including Talbot and master instrumentalist Yann Tiersen) and is now also handling the production (with mixing assistance from Godrich).

Absent Friends opens with the track Absent Friends, which sets the tone with a purposely dated sounding Scott Walkeresque production, complete with orchestral accompaniment. It has the all classic bombast and melodrama of Divine Comedy's (much) earlier Promenade. Sticks and Stones takes the Absent Friends approach and turns up the heat a bit. Arriving as a classical breakup song, and sporting lines like "Flesh is weak, but we know the Ego's weaker even still," Sticks And Stones integrates Tiersen's complex orchestration and instrumental touches and results in a classic Divine Comedy tune.

Hannon has had a lot of change in the three years since Regeneration, including the release of successful tour with Ben Folds and his first baby. The effect of all of these can be heard on Absent Friends, which is at once a return to form and an evolution for the Divine Comedy sound. A more domestic Hannon frequents tracks like Charmed Life. Lyrically, we've never heard him as straightforward and irony-free, "When I hold you in my arms, I hope baby if nothing more, that one day you'll call your life a charmed life." Trust me, it's more moving to hear than read.

The first single, Come Home Billy Bird is upbeat and catchy, a good choice for radio. It's a four minute epic tale of William Bird, the international business traveler (and suburban superhero), as he tries to overcome the all-too-familiar struggles of trying to get home against the fates of modern travel to make it in time for his son's football (soccer, I'm sure) game.

The Wreck of the Beautiful is the odd duck on the disc. The tale of a ship that sank in 1970, Hannon's song is a lament for the proud ship it once was. It is musically strange and unbalanced, presumably to match ship's final state, "and the waves rose five miles high, and the men who did not drown, watched the Beautiful go down." Who am I to question what inspires an artist- I guess it was just time for a nautical theme.

Of the numerous highlights on this largely understated disc, perhaps the most notable is The Happy Goth. Both ironic and insightful, Hannon croons about a young girl who hides her contentment behind a mask of black. Lines like "Don't worry mom, don't worry dad, the hours I spend alone are the happiest I ever had" go against every preconception society has. "She wears Dr. Martins and a heavy cross, but inside she's a happy Goth. " Wonderful, rich stuff.

It may be an unusual criticism, but perhaps my only beef with Absent Friends is what is missing from the release. The hilarious Idaho, recorded during the Absent Friends sessions and available as a B-side on the Come Home Billy Bird single, is unfortunately a notably absent friend on the disc. The track, written during his US tour (presumably in Idaho), has some of the cheekiest lyrics ever penned by Hannon (and let's not forget that it was Hannon who came up with the historic lines "If you were a horse, I'd clean the crap out of your stable, and never once complain."). An early version of Idaho will be available on this site as part of a webcast recorded in 2003, so keep your eyes open for that.

Aside from that largely meaningless issue, Absent Friends comes as a refreshing return to form from one of the most original and compelling voices in modern pop music. What makes it distinctive, I believe, is the contribution by Yann Tiersen (he did the soundtrack to Amelie, and his touches can be heard throughout the disc) as well as the control Hannon had with the production. Will you ever hear any of these tracks on the radio? Not in the United States of Clear Channel, but perhaps on XM radio and digital cable. Fingers crossed that the secret gets out.