What a remarkably confident and accomplished second album this is. Alt-J have somehow sidestepped the burden of their 2012 Mercury Music Prize win for debut An Awesome Wave with a follow-up that feels like a bigger, brighter, better revisiting of the themes explored in their first album. There are experimental flourishes – including what sounds suspiciously like a pan-pipe solo – a Miley Cyrus sample and lashings of impenetrable lyrics that might scrape the lower reaches of prog silliness were it not for the gorgeous, crepuscular music in which frontman Joe Newman’s words are couched.
The album is all the more impressive when you consider it came together in torrid circumstances. Twenty four hours before the group were to return to the studio, bass player and founding member Gwil Sainsbury announced his departure, feeling, his bandmates have explained, he could not commit to the exhausting touring Alt-J would be required to undertake following the new record’s completion. Curiously, his absence has been to the betterment of the music – drummer Thom Green has stepped up as a producer and marshaller of beats and his contribution imbues songs such as ‘Arrival In Nara’ and ‘Every Other Freckle’ with an agreeable spaciness. What is really commendable, however, is that Alt-J have created an art-rock record that does not glower, Radiohead style, under a fog of self-seriousness. It’s clever and envelope-pushing but tremendous fun too.

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