Butcher Boy make indiepop for grown-ups. Theirs is not a world of sugar overload, hyperactive jangle and reckless references, but rather a mannered and considered series of regretful baroque mini-symphonies. Their third LP Helping Hands is their first away from the quietly brilliant How Does It Feel to Be Loved label, coming out instead on punk bastion Damaged Goods; not quite a move up in the game, but rather a move sideways. Still, it’s their first record to have been recorded with the polish that their songs deserve, and the sheen doesn’t sacrifice the band’s more intimate tendencies at all.

The album is also far more expansive and cinematic than their previous two efforts – be it through frontman John Blain Hunt’s picturesque (and distinctly Scottish) imagery of weathervanes, fields and viaducts, or with the sweeping strings that garnish the assuredly romantic title track, or the Nick Drake-tinged closer ‘Every Other Saturday’. Another signpost of the band’s evolution is its use of analogue electronics, which create a lushly burbling bed for hymnal highlight ’Whistle and I’ll Come to You’ and power the swinging single ‘Imperial’.

Sadly, though, the band’s more rambunctious side – previously displayed on tracks like ‘Carve a Pattern’ and ‘Keep Your Powder Dry’ – are otherwise pushed to one side, leaving the album’s sights far more navelly-inclined than its predecessors. Worse still, tracks like the overlong and underdeveloped ‘Bluebells’ take a previously-avoided turn for the namby pamby, drawing on all manner of wussy indiepop cliches (letter-writing, flowers, general romantic weakness) that would almost leave a bowlie reeling, and seem at odds with Hunt’s more devotional moments across the rest of the LP.

There’s no doubting that Butcher Boy’s third is a record of quiet majesty and, in setting their sights high, the band has proudly staked a claim at grander things. Unfortunately, while it’s easy to understand its aspirations, Helping Hands is not going to be the album that brings their songs into the light just yet.