There’s a lot to be said for solitude. Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle once told me about his writing process and being on tour and said the key was to spend as much time as he could on his own and then the songs would come.

Martin Crane, the man behind New York-via-Austin’s Brazos seems to have learned something similar in coming to write his band’s second album Saltwater, a follow-up to 2009′s promising debut Phosphorescent Blues; the themes of the record – isolation, solitude, the sea – formed after a move to NYC found Crane working on a 19th century sail boat and reading Moby Dick.

So far, so “screenplay by Zach Braff”. But given that Melville’s book spoke to Crane, and that he found himself listening to music that shared the explorative tendencies of that tome, we should be thankful for the inspiration that’s resulted in the hook and harmony-heavy tracks on this album.

Recorded with a new drummer and bassist, Saltwater manages to combine – often to sparkling effect – indie-pop hookery with the aforementioned explorative music of Pharaoh Sanders, Can and Harmonia to come across as a kind of rambling, transcendental version of The Shins.

Given they’ve also toured with Grizzly Bear it’s also interesting to hear echoes of Daniel Rossen’s writing in Crane’s music, mainly in the freewheeling nature of the majority of the tracks. We begin practically mid-song in opening track ‘Always On’, as bright synths bounce along with a quasi-Afrobeat kick and a flamenco acoustic guitar flourish. With barely concealed glee, Crane sings “yes, I’m gonna love you til you’re real” and sounds like he’s in the business of creating a companion for himself out of his isolated imagination.

It rolls along unanchored, and is joined in the carefree ranks by ‘How The Ranks Was Won’; that track driven by a motorik chug reminiscent of American Analog Set’s late-career output and is an absolute winner. That’s followed by a pair of crackers: ‘One Note Pillow’ is a jazz-flecked odyssey drenched in echoed harmonies that’s definitely been a result of some time listening to Veckatimest, while ‘Valencia’ is, appropriately enough, a summery and playfully Spanish-tinged track.

Each listen makes any flaws in the record more elusive. There’s the lovely and sad waltz of ‘Deeper Feelings’, the stunning cyclical guitar lines of ‘Irene’ – essentially a jam but addictive thanks to Crane’s engagingly human voice – through to the title track which shares the same freewheelin’ spirit as the preceding track, and again Crane’s lyrics and voice are the star attraction. It’s also the most overtly “about the ocean” song on the record alongside ‘How The Ranks Was Won’, but really – do the themes or inspiration really matter when the tunes are this good?

Crane, along with new Brazos band members Spencer Zahn and Ian Chang, haven’t quite created “transcendental groove music” with Saltwater but as a difficult second album goes, this is a total breeze rather than a mainsail-battering ocean storm.