Thankfully, the songs on Splinter are built to show off the man's strengths. In a way it's the album we've all been waiting for since Sacrifice turned him around - while his last few tended to repeat certain things from song to song, there's some real variety here.

There's a hermetic quality to Gary Numan's latest album: it gazes inwards with such intensity you wonder if he's addressing anyone but himself. You'd say he it made for his own pleasure, except that this is the sound of emotional pain.