It’s not easy to bounce back from a critical drubbing like that Lily Allen took for her 2014 album Sheezus, whose bullish stance failed to convince most. Having publicly disowned that “identity crisis”, her fourth record is a radical overhaul – saying goodbye to longtime producer Greg Kurstin – that gives her signature dancehall-flavoured pop a lighter, fresher, more streamlined sheen, Allen’s voice feather-light.

It’s a wise move for songs well suited to an era of heavy, tell-all memoir. Opener Come on Then belies its pugnacious title with the revelation that “every night I’m crying”, while Family Man, a drama-laden piano ballad, addresses her marriage breakup and her guilt at taking time to tour and write, a worry also addressed on Three, written from the point of view of a confused child. The hardest hit, though, is Everything to Feel Something, self-loathing sublimated into a sweetly ethereal numbness. There are nagging hooks among all the airy confection and revelations, too, yet the relentless inward focus gets exhausting over 14 tracks that should have probably been 11. The closer, Cake, a dreamy, summery R&B number, lets a little light in, urging listeners to both have and eat, to grab a bit of “that patriarchy pie”. Though No Shame ultimately feels more like a transition than a reinvention, it’s good to see Allen coming back for seconds.