Few artists create their best music much later than their debut album, but Keep Breathing has the feel of a magnum opus 27 years after Durutti began enchanting fans as diverse as Ian Curtis and Red Hot Chili Pepper guitarist John Frusciante.

Aided, as ever, by Bruce Mitchell's percussive palette, linchpin Vini Reilly has added African hip-hop, traditional Jewish music and a school choir. His trademark guitars and electronica have never sounded this serene or stately, but Keep Breathing glistens with newfound, simmering anger. Reilly lost his house when former label Factory went down, and his gorgeously sour words send postcards from the edge, blasting off at reality TV, New Labour and depression. Gun contains fleeting suicidal musings, but Reilly hasn't strived so long to give up and Keep Breathing's manifesto of hopeful defiance permeates some of the most beautifully human music this influential Mancunian (or anyone else) has ever recorded.