Sorrow, anger and hope – three emotions and subjects intertwined in human nature, and Billy Bragg is never more at home than when he is dissecting each one.

Bragg has always done his best to express these feelings through his working class status. His forthcoming single I Keep Faith from the politically titled album England, Half English continues in such emotional vein. But as the title would suggest, age doesn’t necessitate pessimism.

Considering Bragg’s history, I Keep Faith edges a little too close to easy listening, with a plodding piano tinkling courtesy of Ian McLagen of Small Faces fame. The song is sweet, simple and emotionally optimistic, but there is something about the sentiments that makes Bragg seem like any other seminal artist whose career has gone on too long. Where is the political furore, the instigation of political conviction?

The single, however, is saved by its B-side. Listening to Like Soldiers Do makes you wonder why he decided not to push this one forward, with his political potency ringing shrill in the ears.

Some kind of sorrowful yet growing hope in I Keep Faith collapses under the heartbreaking futility and a simmering resentment of war in Like Soldiers Do. Croaking like an old Irish singer, drowning in a meaningful nostalgia, Bragg grieves for the past, present and future and this is what a political artist should do. This is anger and sorrow.

There is never a moment when Like Soldiers Do is not an appropriate song. War is immediate. No word goes without a carefully attached meaning and it shows that Bragg hasn’t gone in a wayward direction the way so many influential artists have.

Eric Clapton is still releasing ‘Greatest hits’, Knopfler has ditched Money for Nothing for Celtic infused easy-listening, McCartney is now better known for his acrimonious divorce and nobody seems to care about many older female troubadours.