With a jazz background, a love of 1970s soft rock and a voice like Thom Yorke, former Midlake front man Tim Smith has always been hard to pigeonhole. A decade after quitting the band, the famously perfectionist Smith releases his first album as Harp – a new project with his wife, Kathi Zung.

The good news is it sounds similar to Midlake’s classic period, when they released their breakthrough album The Trials Of Van Occupanther and backed John Grant on his solo debut Queen Of Denmark.

Like those, it’s got a foot in 1970s soft rock but there’s more to it than that, with Smith’s yearning vocals and atmospheric arrangements exhibiting a 1980s influence.

I Am The Seed is an immediate standout from an album influenced by his belated discovery of ’80s bands like Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, The Smiths, Tears For Fear and, especially, The Cure, whose album Faith he says he listened to “non-stop for three years.”

Its title, Albion, reflects his long-term love of British folk-rock and the British Isles themselves. “I’m really drawn to Britain,” he says, “especially Medieval and Renaissance times. The landscapes and gardens, the castles and Tudor-style villages, grey skies, and the mist on the moor.”