CHUMBAWAMBA made a triumphant return to their hometown of Burnley last week and revealed plans for their new album.

Speaking before the sell-out show at Mechanics, Danbert Nobacon said the group had already begun work on their next album.

But although none of the tunes are yet finished, he said they hoped to have the ideas completed by the end of the spring when they plan to start recording.

Earlier this year the anarchist group released their latest album WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), which failed to gain recognition or any significant sales.

Without the backing of their label or a single to promote it, the album failed to catch the public's imagination and live up to the success of Tubthumping, which had put them on the world stage.

But as the curtain lifted on the penultimate show of the tour, the record label politics that have dogged Chumbawamba over the last 12 months were quickly forgotten.

An ecstatic crowd, made up largely of family and friends, welcomed the town's most successful group on stage.

And gift-wrapping their strong political views in uptempo power pop, they delivered their message in the most entertaining of ways. Older material like Time Bomb and Homophobia, which was written after a gay slaying in Bradford, mixed well with newer tracks like Jesus In Vegas, which saw Dunstan Bruce dressed in gold and taking a swipe at American TV evangelists. Rightly proud of the strength of the material on WYSIWYG, the band -- who have added a three piece brass section to their numbers -- gave over a large slice of the evening to their latest work.

Impressively, the crowd responded from as the early as the second song when they sung in time the lyrics to She's Got All The Friends, which alongside I'm Coming Out is one of the album's high points.

Each song was delivered in different costumes to match the theme.

Mary Mary saw Alice Nutter dressed as a nun, swigging from a bottle and smoking cigarettes whilst Danbert backed her, dressed as a vicar.

Their rotating line-up of members taking the lead role kept the show rolling smoothly.

But although crowd pleasers Tubthumping and The Good ship Lifestyle were included, the most notable absentee was the excellent Amnesia, which would have worked far better than the bland Italian folk tune that closed the main part of the show.

But as celebrations for 20 years of Chumbawamba begin -- with the band and their agit-pop again on the fringe of the British music scene -- they clearly still have a lot to offer.

CLIVE LAWRENCE