Pop Levi always did have amazing hair. Not the cut, that would be too subjective – one man’s snappy do is always going to be another’s Pat Sharp feather-cut mullet – but the sheen. Oh it was glossy. It was shiny. It seemed to bend light. You could see your face in it.

And you can all lie to yourselves, but hair is important. For one thing it helped give Levi that otherworldly aura that seems to have all but disappeared from rock stars. Like Bowie and Bolan and Prince, all of whom he at times (musically) resembles, he’s an alien. A weirdo. With amazingly shiny hair.

Although it’s been a while since we’ve heard from him. So there is the possibility he may now be bald as at coot, wearing grey slacks and worrying about the economy. Happily, however, his pre-album talk suggests not, describing Medicine as being “recorded by a different version of me in another dimension, then transmitted to this version of me during prolonged isolation tank sessions”. Mmm hmm. Still. It’s better than “recorded by me, collaborating with The Script, and featuring a duet with Jessie J”. Handily for him, it seems that other-dimension Levi is similarly inclined to this-dimension’s Levi. Thus avoiding any awkward philosophical fall-out where the two Levis have to split due to artistic differences.

So Medicine is a glam rock-indebted record with a large Prince fetish. And so far as that goes, it’s pretty good. Of course it helps that the man knows catchy. The sequinned bell-bottom strut of ‘Strawberry Shake’, and the chugging ‘Motorcycle 666′, like T-Rex painting silver streaks on The Stooges‘ jeans, are extremely canny.

Memorable he seems less familiar with. Or perhaps he’s just forgotten. Which means as good as some of the songs seem, they don’t resonate beyond the extremities of the album. They’re sleek and glossy, but they do feel somewhat slight. They are post modern constructs that know from whence they originated and know that you know they know, and know that you know they know you know. You know?

There are times on Medicine where there is enough self-referential nodding and winking going on to give yourself whiplash. It means that in the end, listening to the album is akin to being presented with a large box on your birthday. Covered in glittery paper, draped in ribbons and topped with a bow, you’re excited beyond belief. But you open it and find, to your utter disappointment, that it’s empty.

We’ll admit, it is a great box. Which is enough, for a moment at least, to ensure you’re completely distracted. But while Levi is exactly the kind of lunatic you want making music, Medicine is too much of a cipher to be anything more than a fleeting fancy.

Listen to Medicine