This is Adrian Crowley's sixth album and, if his back catelogue is as sturdy, ruminative and often lovely as this, one might have to start digging into those records too (beginning, perhaps, with 2007's Long Distance Swimmer).

Crowley sings carefully written songs with a serious baritone that is more melodic on subsequent listens than on the first. His timbre does sound, to these ears, almost identical to Bill Callahan of Smog, but Crowley's muse is more obviously sombre and the music more beautiful. Indeed, At The Starlight Hotel is just gorgeous, glimmering with a glittering echo-chamber of plangent sound, perhaps resembling the luscious melancholy of Tindersticks in their prime (think of Tiny Tears).

The Morning Bells is a fine song, too, and there are nine others here, all with something to separate Crowley from the legions of sensitive singer-songwriters out there - perhaps some hard-won perspective, as well as a nifty way with a tune and, importantly, arrangement (there are marxophones here, mellotrons, omnichords and other well-chosen aural embellishments). All told, a rich and rewarding album.