The emotional register is pushed near the limit right from the first note of More Scared Of You Than You Are Of Me, album number four from The Smith Street Band. First track ‘Forrest’ rushes at you like a loud and eager puppy, desperate to bark all of its news to you whilst climbing all over you. Not an unpleasant sensation and one that is pretty much maintained on the album’s remaining 11 songs.

Hook-wise, however, I don’t find myself being drawn into the band’s world. ‘Death To The Lads’, ‘Birthdays’ and the other full-on songs will very clearly be live favourites (indeed the former has already made it into the 2016 Hot 100 of Australia’s Triple J radio station) but ‘Run Into The World’ and similar numbers where pace gives way to emotion feel worthy but not massively interesting to me. They’re not cloying but they leave me indifferent.

The balance of pace versus emotion generally, however, leans towards the first during the course of More Scared Of You Than You Are Of Me so the work overall never feels like it’s lagging or going on interminably although such things are a matter of individual perception – ‘It Kills Me To Be Alive’ and ‘Suffer’ both last just over three minutes yet the latter seems to pass in half that time whilst the anthemic structure of the other lends it imagined extra length.

The Smith Street Band have definitely crafted as mature and sincere an album as long-time fans will have been expecting from them, whilst newcomers to their heartfelt sound won’t be in the least disappointed with their new discovery. Personal taste does though play a large part in the difference between appreciation and love in this case as, for me, what they do is clearly good but not something I’ll be deliberately listening to in the coming months.  

More Scared Of You Than You Are Of Me is available from amazon & iTunes.

Waiting A Lifetime, Splashh's second album, offers up a very pleasant set of ten tunes. A strong laidback vibe pervades the whole work and it washes over you like lukewarm surf. Lyrically there are some nice moments, such as "you are a sunset that went too soon" on penultimate track 'Under The Moon', a particularly stand out four minutes of shoegaze-meets-Eighties synth.

Stabs at urgency appear at the album's beginning with 'Rings' and at the end on the title track but they're passages of blissed out energy rather than the sort that have you jumping off your seat and running for the dancefloor.

As a result of the above Waiting A Lifetime can lose your attention in the middle. I found myself concentrating on the final two songs mostly because I remembered that what was on the player was something I was listening to with a purpose, rather than because they stood out from the overall mood created by the work.

Not that this is a bad thing here - plenty of albums have a similar effect and utterly pass you by (whether you're meant to be writing about them or not) yet Waiting A Lifetime succeeds in leaving behind a residue to snag enough of your attention for you to have the impression that you've enjoyed the experience, even if you're not quite sure what it was. You'll listen again to establish a better grasp of things and another layer will be added.

With debut album Comfort Splashh had a bit more pace and edge to their sound as well as a few songs which finished too soon. On Waiting A Lifetime the edge has been planed down somewhat, the pace has slackened and the songs are all more fully formed, making for an interesting expansion of their sound and overall craft.

Waiting A Lifetime is available from amazon & iTunes.