(San Remo/Island) ****

SOMETIMES it's a shame that it takes cyncial marketing to break an album - but when it's as good as this it's much easier to live with the exercise.

Now available with a second disc of five tracks recorded with a string quartet, Passing Stranger remains head and shoulders above the likes of interchangeable albums from the amorphous drudge of the BluntMorrisonNutini beast.

Elusive has already earned Matthews an Ivor Novello and it's in good company.

Dream Song captures a floating moment complete with Eastern drone and tabla; The Fool Fooling Himself finds the bite in Matthews' rich voice; and Eyes Wider Than Before chalks it all up to experience.

The swelling stringed versions serve only to prove the old adage that great songs will out no matter what setting they're played in.