Perhaps only Matt Johnson could make a record on MDMA who’s opening track contains such emotionally distraught lines as “the cancer of love has eaten out my heart.” Yet the contradictions and widely divergent strands on Johnson’s first album as The The are what makes it such an astonishing record. Pushing his musical sensibilities through a filter inspired by Throbbing Gristle and the cutting-edge sounds of the New York club scene, Johnson threw out wistful pop classic “This Is The Day” alongside an angry diatribe about Thatcher’s Britain, “That Sinking Feeling,” and “The Twilight Hour,” a track that foreshadows the Balearic sounds on the horizon while detailing the crippling anxieties that make you never want to leave your bedroom, never mind go out and hug a stranger. Plus, any UK listener who has ever been irritated by Jools Holland boogie woogying his way onto other artists’ songs on an episode of …Later should listen to Holland’s virtuoso turn on “Uncertain Smile” here and all will be forgiven.