I'm a little late in reporting back here, but over the past few days I've been waking up with the line “Egg and chips from the transport caf was the worst food that I've ever had / Do you want some more? / Oh dear god, no,” from opening song 'Inside the Restless Mind of Rollerball Rocco' circling endlessly round my mind. Over gentle strums and a sparkling, enchanted air, a mystical scene begins to emerge from the condensation and smoke of a greasy spoon café.

I have a few hazy recollections of these pallid, sweaty figures in bright costumes throwing themselves around on Saturday afternoon TV, but I'm guessing many of you have had little or no exposure to the likes of Kendo Nagasaki or Giant Haystacks. At the time, young and old in Britain's provincial towns were spellbound by these men. Imagine WWF without the wankee-doodle-dandy, the suntans or staging budget, but in touch with a rabid fanbase (especially the old ladies) and transplanted to your local theatre. Watching now, it all looks like fairly harmless, cumbersome panto, yet serious injuries were common in the sport and the rogues' gallery of heroes and villains involved left a lasting impression on many a nascent mind long after the audiences had turned away.

Haines has always been an authoritative storyteller with a rare gift for dark melody, as well as a knack for drawing you into his world. Britain in the late 70's might as well be another planet. He has applied his acidic commentary to the icons of his formative years before, but this is more of a freakadelic homage to the 'Unusual Men' who provided rock star other-ness at an age when music was for cissies. It's far from dryly biographical: he embellishes the history with hallucinatory projections where the protagonists are enigmatic shamans with musical pretensions. I guess there is a hint of nostalgia here, but it never resorts to irony; it's all a bit too disturbing for that.

'Gorgeous George' switches seamlessly between a threatening verse and saccharine chorus, while 'Saturday Afternoon' is a triumphant pinnacle in '9½ Psychedelic Meditations...' Fantasy converges with reality against a backdrop of shit food and violence on TV. It's 'Another Brick in the Wall' having nightmares on the sofa in front of World of Sport. Those inimitable vocals range from a haunted purr on 'Catweazle' to an astringent rasp on the echoey sci-fi pulse of 'Rock Opera in the Key of Existential Misery'. 'Big Daddy Got A Casio VL-Tone' starts with a popping 80s keyboard preset similar to that on The Fall's 'The Man Whose Head Expanded.'  Like The Fall, Haines shows there is always a rich seam of mystery and intrigue in your own back yard, which makes it all the more depressing that so many knobheads from Hampshire are pretending they're from New York or rural Wisconsin. 'Linda's Head' is the one moment that I really can't manage to get my head around; it seems a little throwaway in the middle of this rich tapestry. Rather than ending in a Kamikaze Crash, 'Haystacks in Heaven' is an affectionate valedictory ballad, where the departed souls of grapple are granted their rightful place at the cultural table.

It's all over before you know it, and if anything I would have liked the record to explore a few more extended tangents, but then Luke Haines has never really been a jam merchant. The music industry wasn't crying out for this ridiculous idea to come into fruition, which is one of the reasons why it's such an enriching experience. This is true art, not the result of a focus group meeting. Haines has even produced some gloriously bold paintings of all the key players, which you can view on his blog.