Just Jack: 'All Night Cinema'

Jack Allsopp's stage name suggests he could be self-interested, the sort of songwriter who only really broaches one subject, but his third album features a lot more than Just Jack. "We are all embers from the same fire," he sings on the opening track, a theory he proceeds to test by filling All Night Cinema with a disparate and not entirely sympathetic bunch of characters: the nutjob with a workplace crush, the waster daydreaming his life away in a bedsit near the World's End, the goth who turns arsonist at a disco.

If there's a quintessential Britishness to many of these characters, it's a trait that extends to the way Allsopp paints them in his lyrics. 'The Day I Died', a tale of ordinary life ruptured by tragedy, is made all the more shocking by scene-setting references to Weetabix, "20 cigarettes and a six-pack" and the "p*ssy stench" of a park bench. Allsopp likes a simile ("I watched her smile dissolve like Alka Setzer"), isn't afraid to rhyme "Astronaut" with "Hampton Court", and he's witty too. Observe the way he dissects a break-up on '253': "She had nothing that I needed, so over the years my love receded, a bit like her old man's hairline... and mine." Neil Tennant couldn't have phrased it better.

Allsopp's music, meanwhile, is often as clever and varied as his wordplay. These eleven tracks, each of which was co-written and produced by the singer, take in everything from classic-sounding pop ('Embers', 'The Day I Died') to dark disco ('Doctor Doctor', 'So Wrong') to low-key, folky electronica ('Blood', 'All Night Cinema'). 'Lo and Behold' opens with a guitar riff Oasis wouldn't – wouldn't have - sniffed at, while the flashy electro of 'Goth In the Disco' teeters towards Calvin Harris territory.

However, impressive as the detail is, it shouldn't be allowed to distract from the bigger picture. Knitting his ear-snagging lyrics and inventive productions together are some extremely hummable tunes. In fact, the only track lacking in the chorus department is the noisy instrumental at the end. All Night Cinema could probably do with a couple more full-on uptempo songs, but this is a minor blot on what is a very strong, very likeable British pop album.