Septober Nowonder

The Revenants have been as quiet as a small-town library since their debut Horse Of A Different Colour jollied us all up back in 1993, and while that delay is hardly a career-enhancing move, Septober Nowonder follows the debut's tuneful guitars-bass-drums formula with neither hesitation nor deviation.

The Revenants' key strength is their impeccable musical instinct and their ability to apply it sensitively to supremely crafted songs that could exhaust the most elaborate thesaurus. They're at once melancholy, uplifing, poptastic, uncompromising and all those things we love about intelligent rock. They may claim no life-changing powers but they make living considerably more tolerable.

Stephen Ryan's voice has an in-bred honesty that personalises virtually every song he wraps it around, especially the wistful 'Aldebaran' and the doleful 'Sarah', which, with its delicious double guitar lines from Ryan and Conor Brady, could wear out your repeat button. The equally exquisite 'When You Fly', complete with marvellously understated harmony vocals from Eileen Gogan, waltzes along so lightly it barely touches the earth.

'The Sharpest Knife In The Drawer' is a country-ballad par excellence, decked out with some appropriately keening lap-steel playing. 'The Emperor' has some cute whistles and mandolin that embellish its country feel rather than smothering it in effete folksiness - it would not be out of place on an REM album. It's really only on 'Mr Lewis' that they try to turn up the heat and rock out to only moderate effect.

While Septober Nowonder may suffer in some quarters on account of its few concessions to modern techno-wizardry, difficult second albums don't come any easier than this. But that third album in 2005? Could be tricky, that one, so better start working on it now, chaps.