They may have lacked the marketable quirks of some of their peers when they appeared from nowhere with ‘A Certain Trigger’, but they were spotless, nary a foot nor combed-over hair out of place. And they turned out to be more literate than The Rakes, more immediately accessible than The Futureheads and frankly more reliable than most. Their massive success, initially surprising, can probably be attributed to the fact that there was, and is, nothing much to dislike about them. And don’t mistake that likeability for lack of especially defining characteristics, because Paul Smith did a convincing line in becoming Britain’s most beguiling frontman. And the fact that they were an anomaly on the cutting edge electro label Warp did quite well as a quirk anyway. But they were just nice sharp chaps making nice sharp music, with Easter eggs aplenty. Things were that simple, but they were not, not at all. And that was refreshing.
So more of the same? Essentially. They’re a wind-up pop music machine, that’s their calling. But, marking itself apart from their debut, this is pretty much Paul Smith’s record and Paul Smith’s record alone. As if he hadn’t already flexed his literacy and well-thumbed thesaurus to their limits, here he packs words denser than Dizzee Rascal reading Morrissey in an industrial compacter. The only reason he seems to ever repeat himself is a begrudging respect for the role of the chorus and to give the less literate something to holler along to. Occasionally he tumbles a little too far head over heels into the absurd (‘A Fortnight’s Time’: “When it comes to girls I’m mostly hypothetical/If I list their names it’s purely alphabetical/When it comes to girls I’m truly theoretical/If I test a nerve it’s merely dialectical”), but by and large has something considered, perceptive and accomplished to spin out effortlessly.
Too bad really that the band haven’t stepped up in the same way, seeming happy to tread water subtly and avoid the relative synchronised swimming of their debut – leaving Paul free to somersault his way to glory – but they provide a solid backbone to the display nonetheless. The steady pace does give opportunity for textures to breath, making repeat listens more and more of a pleasure, particularly the Smithsian twinkles of ‘Books From Boxes’ and ‘By The Monument’. And when the vocals and music work particularly well together, on the jabbing, nostalgic ‘Girls Who Play Guitars’, the jangly, momentum gathering ‘Karaoke Plays’ and the sweet, percussively grammatical ‘Nosebleed’, they feel watertight, if a little more lightweight. It still floats though, and you suspect it might for longer than most.