Like its Jean-Luc Godard namesake, Nouvelle Vague’s Bande A Part mixes fatalism and starryeyed naïveté to playful, joyous effect. Gone is chanteuse Camille, making way for the Rive Gauche sensuality of Silja and aptly monikered Lost Princess of ennui, Melanie Pain. Darker ’80s gems are recast as svelte sophisticated tunes, with tracks such as the Voodoo-Goth take on Bauhaus’ vampiric ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’, the retro-soul invocation of Bill Withers on Yazoo’s ‘Don’t Go’, and The Cramps’ ‘Human Fly’ turned into a velvety burlesque number. But the best track has to be the slow Kingston stomp of ‘Heart of Glass’, which certainly trumps Ms Harry in the pouty stakes. There’s more than enough Gauloise and rouge-lipped Left Bank sexiness here to keep aficionados blissfully happy.

Naz Black is from Readings Carlton