Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind of Fix

Bombay Bicycle Club currently find themselves in the very common position of being liked and respected, but not quite shifting a proportionate amount of records. Their third album since they left school as many years ago feels like a confident effort to redress the balance. OpenerHow Can You Swallow So Much Sleep, their Bright Eyesish Twilight soundtrack contribution, sets the template for the finer tracks here – a lilting repetition slowly builds, all bouncy sensitivity and earnest determination. Singer Jack Steadman's distinctive voice still sounds like he's had the corners of his mouth taped to his ears, but it's boosted by an elegant palate of guitar layers and stadium-friendly drums, and is now more muscular than weedy. There are occasional lapses into epic-indie-lite – Beggars is Keep the Car Running Jr – but this is a strong, forward-looking record that delights in its own ambition.

Soley - We Sink

"Sóley returns with her first full-length, an album full of rhythmic makeshift creatures, of handclaps hidden in the undergrowth, tempting us to join in. The 13 tracks are sometimes incredibly catchy; amazingly quirky at other times: think cardigan-folk from the northern hemisphere, an ocean of stained glasses bopping up and down in the shared apartment's dishwater, leeward in limbo. The result is refreshing in its lack of edginess; think Joanna Newsom minus her harp, or the Casady sisters circa 2004, but then clearly better trained, less crooked. In other words: her voice, those loops moving around like wooden toys, and finally the piano – that's the backbone, the essence of her compositions; at least until some unexpected element appears elsewhere, a rhythmic creaking or the lack thereof, like a hidden Rube Goldberg machine, setting off yet another component, thus paving the way across the threshold and on into the next realm of sound. And thus we keep on sinking, deeper and deeper, until we stand on terra firma once again, realizing that somehow, next to us, above us, around us, a beat is laid out, hesitantly moving along at first, then careering…"