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Review Yes, they've been given more encouragement, nurturing and backing than most bands receive in a lifetime, but they've now released three albums of bravely different styles. Their debut was dynamic indie-pop, while top-10 follow-up Flaws lurched across to soft folk territory with a perversity that only seemed opportunistic with hindsight. Now, thankfully electing not to go the full Mumford, they return with something that's beautifully hard to categorise. A bit Italian house, a bit Animal Collective (Ben Allen is among the producers, as is 21st century tyro Jim Abbiss), a bit Talking Heads and a lot flush with giddy enthusiasm and sunshine, it's very indie and very fey - but in a good way.
Lead single Shuffle provides pretty much a microcosm of the album's feel. Building a gentle, hooky pop song over a looping, dance-inducing piano sample, it's, like all the best late-summer sounds, 75% exuberant and 25% melancholy. What You Want and Bad Timing waft in on similar breezes, but with less definition, more ambivalence. Lights Out, Words Gone is as close as they come to the realms of the epic, fostering a stabby white-funk riff until it blows off science (they're warmer than Foals) and stumbles happily onto something not a million miles away from soul.
Guitars are understated throughout, and singer/co-producer Jack Steadman's penchant for making bedroom-electronica off duty has permeated these grooves without smothering them in 'blub-' or any other kind of 'step'. Yes, the videos still display awkward, cringe-worthy naivety that could inspire the next The Inbetweeners movie, but this music is a mature mix of jaunty and jaundiced.
--Chris Roberts
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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