Like most acts that formed as journalists bored of writing about music and longing to play it, Saint Etienne began their life as a very conceptual group. Their pop-meets-dance modus operandi would, unsurprisingly, prove to be a favourite of music journalists throughout the 1990s.

But “Nothing Can Stop Us” (the first Saint Etienne song sung by Sarah Cracknell) was a long, long time ago indeed. So what do Saint Etienne have to offer so many years after their beginnings? Well, if Bob Stanley was critiquing the band, he might criticise their lack of sonic development – the trio are still playing pretty pop meets electronica numbers.

But, at the same time, you’d imagine he’d praise them at the same time for their sheer durability; the sounds found and the songs created on Tales From Turnpike House are pretty hard to resist. He’d also say that their reinterpretation of the Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come For Free (Tales From Turnpike House is essentially a concept album about an Islington estate) was brilliantly alive with characters.

If anything, Tales From Turnpike House could soundtrack the next Mike Leigh film. David Essex guests on “Relocate”, in a duet with Sarah Cracknell that comes across as a high-minded interpretation of The Good Life, the 1970’s comedy of a self-sufficient couple in the suburbs with haughty-taughty neighbours. Tales From Turnpike House is very clever-clever, but it never forgets that the songs have to be good for the concept to work. Fortunately, they are.