'Truelove's Gutter' is Richard Hawley's sixth album, and a sedately-paced ode to love amid the streets of his home city of Sheffield. No surprise here -- anyone who has become familiar with Hawley's career since his first solo record in 2000 has understood his songs are rooted firmly in the place.

As Hawley tells Spinner, that familiarity with Sheffield's streets, bridges, parks and pubs has allowed him to turn them into cinematic backdrops to songs about love and loss. And even if Hawley knows they're less-than-glamorous outside the music, that doesn't matter....

"It's like the Tallahatchee Bridge or Route 66; I've been to those places -- trust me, they're not glamorous. It's the way somebody sees something isn't it? I see poetry in a beermat. I find the idea of a lot of these places really beautiful, but it's because I know them. I've always wandered round the streets and saw things maybe not everyone would -- 'What? That building? You find that beautiful'. And I do."

Hawley says: "I don't know what it's like to live in Berlin. I don't know what it's like to live in Harrogate. I don't even know what it's like to live in Rotherham, and that's only f------ four miles away. If I tried to pretend that I did it would be phoney."

The former Longpigs and Pulp guitarist, 41, says the record is also borne out of his love of oral history, the oft-repeated stories that become legends and bring with them a romantic, nostalgic filter.

"I like listening to my family when they talk about a time when I wasn't here. There is a romance to it, you imagine, and it's all about whether you can be bothered to listen.

"My grandmother used to say 'Listen more than you talk' and I thought that was brilliant. I do listen and watch and observe. That is something I've enjoyed all my life. I've genuinely enjoyed seeing things and being part of a moving, living history."
As Hawley recently told Spinner, he knows the album -- which deals with its tales of bruised romance at a gentle pace -- may be too slow for some, but he hopes it will eventually be regarded as one of its charms.

"Love's 'Forever Changes', or 13th Floor Elevators or Chocolate Watch Band, old country and blues stuff, I just put it on and I always hear something new."