Everything is Borrowed is the product of a lot of introspection, in which Skinner seems to have had some kind of Road to Damascus moment and come to the conclusion that!

Well, God doesn't exist, people are fallible but generally decent, and we should all just get along and have a dance before the inevitable conclusion.

And if all that sounds simplistic and patronising, that's because it is - especially when put into the context of Skinners' other releases on his own label, SixSevenNine.

Original Pirate Material tore the moribund scene of UK Garage apart with its month in the life of a geezer concept, A Grand Don't Come For Free did much of the same and did it just as well. 

Then along came The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living, which marked the beginning of what has been the downfall of genuinely promising artist - that record was a coruscating and at times thoroughly unpleasant look at his own tragic inability to deal with stardom.

The narrative and on record persona has developed like a narcissistic character in Hollyoaks, the meteoric rise, followed immediately by the crashing fall (coke-abusing, popstar-molesting failure climbing the walls of his own drug hell) and most recently, and most predictably, the plateau of wisdom and serenity that Skinner seems to have reached on his latest release.

It is not all bad however!

On a musical level, Everything is Borrowed is a huge step up from the claustrophobic two step of his last record - here there's disco, funk, swinging French accordion and even a reasonable stab at smooth jazz, on the Miles Davis-apeing 'I Love You More (Than You Like Me)'. BUT the lyrical content/intent is still just too saccharine for words. (Patrick Stileman)

Everything Is Borrowed Video