Well, it's been a few years hasn't it. More than I care to mention anyway. And there's been a few "hiccups" along the way... Sister Sarah, Navajo Kiss, the Dunnery reunion, and right at the end, Nolangate.

But it's here now and surely the focus will fall on John Mitchell. How will he fit inside Dunnery's dainty boots?

Those of us familiar with his previous work in Kino and the live It Bites show (and even no-show) will know that he has the cojones to do the job and this album in no way dispels that motion!

From the opening of Oh My God it is clear that the boys are back and meaning business. Vocal harmonies soar above a breezy John Beck keyboard line with a solid drum n bass backing from Bob Dalton and the Johns. Then, this icing of Mitchell's energetic guitar work puncturing the air like lightening on a summers day.

Ghosts continues to make us believe that they've never been away, a more pacey, urgent song, it fair skips along for its 4 and a half minutes.

The next track, Playground should be familiar to most, if not all of you as it's on their live When The Lights Go Down album as well as on their myspace page. In case you don't know it, it's a slower, more deliberate piece, which served as a great "We're back" statement last year.

Memory of Water likewise has already seen the light of day. This sees John Beck letting rip on the keys at last, duelling with Mitchell in a furious midsection before they make up and make musical love in the climax of the song.

The near title track Tall Ships sails along next, graceful like the tall ships it talks about. A very gentle song to be sure.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley is a return to form though, an entertaining 8 minutes that harks back to the classic eco aware days of St Louis tinged with Kino's style. It probably lasts a minute too long though.

All the favourite It Bites trademarks reappear on Great Disasters, which could have come from any of their albums. These guys haven't lost any of their pop writing abilities over the last 20 years, and if the top 40 wasn't ruled by PR companies this would be the summer hit of the year, and we'd all be singing "Dum bree um bree ayo!" on the Costa Brava whilst knocking back our San Miguels.

It was so tempting to say that they bring the temperature down with Fahrenheit that I just did. Oh how funny am I? Don't answer that. It does break the It Bites mould and could point towards the future direction of the band. Or not. We'll have to wait and see.

The down tempo continues with the intro to For Safe Keeping, with just John's voice and John's piano before they let the others join in. A love song in the prog tradition, saying things without really saying them. It does remind me of one of the excellent The Urbane's songs. But unless I go and play their albums I couldn't tell you which.

Again, Lights (played slightly differently on tour as Breathe) sounds so typically It Bites as to make you believe that you found a magical time machine (as opposed to a standard time machine) and have magically gone back in time inside it, with only Mitchell's more gravelly voice (and your inbuilt sense of realism) telling you otherwise.

The album closes with the 13 minute epic England which finally sees the band updating their sound, bringing themselves up to date and along with Fahrenheit point the way to the future.

It has been a long time, even since we first told you about the reunion plans, but it has been worth the wait. This is an album full of reminders of the past, but with enough pointers to make you think that this came still has legs. And in England, they also have an epic good enough that they may well be able to drop the tedious Plastic Dreamers and Yellow Christian from their live set!

The Tall Ships is available from www.itbites.com as a Limited Edition Gatefold CD for £12.50 plus £1 p&p.

4 out of 5