ONE WE MISSED: Skyscraper Stan and the Commission Flats: Those Were the Days (digital outlets)

This album by Australia-based expat Stan – released in February – didn't so much go past us but was overtaken by other releases on the final sprint to the finishing tape.

Although written a few years ago, many of the songs here speak to the times we find ourselves in: Run the Game pokes a sharp stick at the privileged and ambitious (“to you, all of life's a race and there's no second place”); Let Me Be Frank is a little more coded and oblique but there's something about how people fall for leaders (“you know they're just no good, they'd sell you for scrap if they could”) and in 21^st Century Lullaby the singer has to admit to a child that this generation has failed it: “Baby, you'll want some answers out of me, like did I do a thing when we had a chance to bring an end to this catastrophe”.

Talk to Me is an encounter with someone who has done their research and is telling the singer to wake up but “I see you straight up losing your mind”.

Stan wraps his thoughtful lyrics in approachable folk-pop and soul-touched rock with strings and horns, and adds in the obligatory reggae track (Anjali).

There's a reflective quality here too: the title track which arrives on a woozy saxophone looks back to the time of youthful hedonism and “days devoid of wit or wisdom”.

Love also comes with its hooks and jeopardies: “When you've got a problem she can make it all about her. But when it comes to questioning her love, only a fool would doubt her,” on the antipodean soul of the punchy Pauline.

With an excellent band which adds colour and mood to his effortless melodies and probing lyrics, Those Were the Days is yet another sound and enjoyable album from a man who stands tall in his field.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here