As prolific as he was over the previous decade, Darren Hayman spent very little of it singing about himself. A range of peculiar and often antiquated themes captured the English songwriters imagination and he subsequently devoted entire projects to William Morris Socialist chants, open-air swimming pools, American astronauts, and the Essex Witch Trials. Turning the lens inward, Hayman begins the next decade with 2020s Home Time, an album that is still based around a central concept, but a far more personal one. Recorded at home with a strict, self-imposed track allowance (only eight tracks per song, all arranged acoustically), Home Time is an album written about breakups, and while it is certainly intimate, it is not overly melancholic or imposingly dour. The playful, earnest indie pop that Hayman has built his career around is in full evidence on upbeat cuts like I Was Thinking About You and I Tried and I Tried and I Failed, which ring with jaunty mandolin leads and sweet harmonies courtesy of collaborators Hannah Winter and Laura Kovic. His meditations on romantic endings and the emotional trail theyve cut through his life are largely gentle, as he explores the various aftermaths with a reflective eye rather than an angry or resentful one. Still, theres a sense of longing in the subtle pop of The Joint Account and Am I the Noise, a pair of highlights that play like a knowing sigh directed at another of lifes downturns. Its not an ambitious album, nor one of Haymans best, but its as cozy and welcoming as its title suggests. ~ Timothy Monger

Rovi