It is a done deal. ÷, the third LP by Ed Sheeran, is predestined to be the mammoth album of 2017 – at least, unless Taylor Swift drops hers, possibly before Christmas (and there’s no word on Harry Styles’s solo debut, which might well feature Sheeran). After going dark from social media, travelling the world as incognito as pigment allowed and penning hits for Justin Bieber (the rather good Love Yourself), Sheeran has returned with another mathematically themed set, one that sets up its own critique. ÷ (“Divide”) is, yes, formulaic, in that Sheeran replicates the ballads’n’rapping template he forged on + and perfected on x, veering from his soppy everyman underdog persona to lover scorned.

Don’t was a persuasive kiss and tell from x, allegedly about Sheeran, Ellie Goulding and Niall Horan. Here, the sung-rapped New Man details the annoying metrosexual habits of a former lover’s new squeeze. This is part of Sheeran’s obvious appeal: he can be nasty, funny and sympathetic, all at the same time.

Similarly, if you liked Sheeran’s swerve into Justin Timberlake-style R&B on the very catchy Sing, chances are you’ll have hit repeat on the tropical pop of Shape of You, its ÷ analogue, which has already spent time at No 1 in the UK and the US. The album opens with Eraser, in which Sheeran raps his story. Concluding that “money is the root of all evil and fame is hell”, he carefully avoids whining in favour of analysis. I’m probably alone in preferring the metropolitan, beats-driven Sheeran to the Suffolk busker who headlined Wembley Stadium with a guitar and a loop pedal.

Ballads, however, are his bread and butter. They continue to contain simple sugars and artery-clogging cholesterols. Sheeran’s take is that ÷ packs a ballad even more zeitgeist-seizing than x’s Thinking Out Loud.

He probably means Perfect, a faintly doo-wop-influenced waltz, made for those overwrought wedding receptions that bankrupt marriages before they’ve even begun. Less saccharine is Castle on the Hill, which finds Sheeran nostalgic for childhood, mentioning Elton John’s canonical Tiny Dancer, where x at least found him listening to Re: Stacks by Bon Iver.

The scant innovations here are mixed. The craic-hop of Galway Girl speaks of Sheeran’s fondness for Van Morrison, and the kind of Irishness found in New York pubs. It finds him targeting the Guinness-drinking market now forsaken by Mumford & Sons. It’s a canny demographic move, but you can’t help wishing for far more funk and far fewer fiddles.