A Mansun single? Must mean a new album. Google. Wouldn't you know. Album number four as it goes. Link. Album was in the works in 2001. Link. Which got delayed in 2002. Link. Which had amassed 15 songs in 2003. Link. Which was abandoned shortly after, following the announcement that the band were to split. Hmmm...

So Mansun have called it quits. As part of their three-disc swan song (Kleptomania), Slipping Away is a final reminder to the public of Britpop's perennial nearly men.

With a fuzzy upbeat intro, you think Mansun are about to really go for it until Paul Draper's dour, elastic vocals drag half-baked despair over the song. Getting Away shows the group at odds with their sound of late, leaning towards experimentalism with beats and samples, which eventually amounts to little. And so the dustbin lid falls on another Britpop hanger. Mansun made some good music, at times great. But that was '97, which has long since slipped away...