My Album of the week.

Duran Duran: Astronaut.

GROAN. Unless you were a relative or a paid-up member of their fan club, that seemed to be the only sensible response to the news that Duran Duran had decided to re-form (even with "the original line-up!").

Like weight gain and male pattern baldness, a reunion seems to be an inevitable part of life for every sad old band from the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. The process usually involves a small-scale tour, a claim that their new material is "the best stuff we've ever done" and a record that is so abominably bad, you'd sooner drill a hole in your head than listen to it.

What such middle-aged rockers generally fail to mention, of course, is that having blown all their cash on drugs, hookers, homes in the country and horrific solo packages, they're now so desperate for moolah, they're willing too get back together with band mates they swore blind they'd never speak to again, all in their desperate pursuit of coin. To find a re-formed band that actually produces something worthwhile - well, that's about as likely as the Stones putting out another decent album.

Imagine the shock and surprise then, to discover that the new Duran Duran album is not only a decent record, it's actually rather good. In fact, in places it's kind of great.

Good as they were in their prime, there was always something a little portentous about Duran Duran. I mean, have you listened to Wild Boys or New Moon On Monday lately?

More than music, Simon Le Bon and Co seemed to spend an inordinate amount of their career in love with the theatrics and melodrama of being stars. The mere fact that Le Bon was nearly killed in a yachting accident rather than a good, old-fashioned car crash seemed to say it all.

What makes this CD marvelous, however, is that all the pretentious posturing has been jettisoned, leaving a collection of bright, smart pop songs that still sound like classic Duran Duran. From the opener (Reach Up For The) Sunrise through to the end, every track here comes laden with catchy hooks and sing-along lines.

It's only when you get to the end of the album that you realise this is the perfect Duran Duran record - the one that they were probably too arrogant to deliver in their prime.

They may not have become astronauts, but it seems that Duran Duran have finally grown up.