Cloud Boat - Model of You

And now, they’re back already, little more than a year on. You wonder if it’s an urgency that’s translated to the sound of this sophomore effort, Model of You. “Prelude”, certainly, displays a keen sense of drama in opening the album, with huge, almost tribal drums washing over a quick-fire, high-fretted guitar line and a muddle of overlapping, chanted vocals.

Like Book of Hours, there seems to be a pretty diffuse collection of ideas in play on this record; “Hideaway”, for instance, is more or less an unabashed pop song; there’s a pretty big beat, sure, but it otherwise follows a fairly orthodox song structure, with a soaring chorus that threatens to sound anthemic, without ever quite following through. Then, elsewhere, you’ve got the sparse, tentative “Bricks Are For”, with vocals that take more than a hint of inspiration from old tourmate Blake and an instrumental backdrop that amounts to little more than a shimmering wall of guitar.

That’s one thing I really like about Model of You, actually - the way in which it uses the guitar, which seems as if it’s been consciously geared towards dispelling any notion of the duo being too caught up in their electronic roots. There’s understated, shuffling loops (“Portraits of Eyes”, “The Glow”), incendiary, sweeping lines (the climax of “All of My Years”) and chirpy, smartly-incorporated riffs (“Aurelia”); there’s just generally a real intelligence about the way in which they’ve sought to expand their palette to accommodate the guitar, and the record is lent an impressive sonic complexity as a result.

Where it falls down a little is on the pacing front, as well as in terms of convincing the listener that they aren’t running out of ideas. “Golden Lights” and “Told You” are over quick enough, but ultimately amount to little more than retreads of “Bricks Are For”. “Thoughts in Mine” is an overwrought attempt at straightforward electro; in shying away from an obvious pop approach, it ends up meandering. At points, you wonder whether there’s an appropriate balance of electronic elements, particularly in terms of the beats; they’re simpler, and less striking, than on Book of Hours, and the skittering backing on, say, “The Glow” does draw into focus the fact that the toning down of some of those bass-related facets might not necessarily represent a step forward for the pair.

That actually sums up Model of You fairly neatly. It’s an LP that’s brave enough to experiment, and that should hopefully see Cloud Boat build on the positives and rectify the negatives. The real flaw, if there is one, is that they might have strayed a little too far from their roots. The uninitiated, though, will see this as an intriguing electro-pop record, first and foremost.