The Concretes - WYWH

The band's last record, and the first since the departure of celebrity singer Victoria Bergsman, 2007's Hey Trouble, was a geekily lovely, country-inspired affair. Lisa Milberg, stepping to the front to take on lead vocals, seemed to bury her voice in layers of harmonies, and when her own sound could be heard clearly, its fragility was almost self-consciously child-like. The album as a whole was a swirling mixture of styles, sounds and feedback, and WYWH sees the band not only stripping the extraneous noise away to create something much purer and yet more complicated, but also has Milberg finding her adult voice and growing into becoming the true female singer of The Concretes.

While her still delicate and earnest vocals are a far cry from the powerful lungs of 1970s disco divas, and the instrumentation leans more heavily on melodica than saucy horn sections, the band's conviction in the direction they've taken with this newest record is totally convincing. If its original disco influences are personified by the John Travolta figure taking assuredly to the illuminated dancefloor, WYWH is propping up the bar, sloping off for a cigarette and shuffling quietly with its friends in the corner; it's still quintessentially a part of disco, if not the part we'd first think of.

From the first echoing notes of 'Good Evening,' the sound is tight, almost immaculately glacial. Rooted in simple hypnotic drumbeats, equally uncomplicated melodies rise up and blend almost imperceptibly to create beautiful, haunting pop songs. 'All Day' is perhaps the closest the album comes to its ‘70s roots, with its synths, and beats with more than a whisper of the Gibb brothers. But it's pulled out of being derivative with a heavy pan-pipe part, and lyrics less 'Stayin' Alive' and more 'Stayin' Awake': "We're gonna stay in bed/All day, all day, all day." There's even a track that strays towards power ballad territory, though 'Oh My Love', at just shy of three minutes and with a xylophone part as well as electric guitar licks, is saved from such terrors by its sincerity and lack of self-indulgence.

We do slip into more familiar territory towards the end of the album; penultimate track 'Sing For Me' wouldn't sound out of place on Hey Trouble, and it does show that the band's strengths lie elsewhere. This is demonstrated by the album's final foray into disco with its title track. With its charmingly infectious and melancholy chorus, it brings the record to a triumphant close.

In terms of the album title, which alongside the band currently requesting fans' favourite summer snaps, there's a firm nod towards the current trend for heartbreaking nostalgia in PR campaigns (take a bow, Arcade Fire and your people), but also a statement of palpable confidence in this album. The Concretes are proud of what they've done here, and where they've ended up as a band, and rightly so.  This is a surprising return for them, and a thoroughly successful one.