Sounds like Falling Off Maps have had a bit of a tough time of it. Formed from the ashes of failed major label project Headway, the Nottingham five-piece have already experienced most of the highs and lows the music industry has to offer. Touted as the next big thing, they toured America and the UK with promise before being abruptly dumped by their label and left out in the cold. Now, they’re back under a different guise with a debut album that sees them re-organised and reinvigorated.

This collection of 15 tracks showcases a graceful narrative poise and a clear talent for cinematic songwriting. The imagery on “I.D.S.T” and indeed throughout the album is evocative of a decrepit seaside town, full of “rows of boarded window panes” and shopkeepers clinging to the last scraps of the year’s trade. It’s neatly mirrored with a pained recollection of a lost love, with the protagonist recalling an ephemeral summer romance (“ when we slow danced on the pier/I’m thinking ‘how the fuck did I end up back here?’”). Painful memory haunts the whole album, and wraps itself around these songs like a beachcomber’s scarf.

These more sensitive songs bring to mind I Am Kloot, while the guitar interplay on “Wolf River” recalls Foals. The album offers up an interesting mix of styles, but it’s definitely best when at its most urgent, with the occasionally hammy ballads leaving a little to be desired. A sparse production and plangent vocals also recall a stripped back Radiohead, no more so than on “Beyond the Boathouse”. Just as the album seems to be calmly settling into its central premise, it hits you with a song much more sinister in its subject matter. Here, the lyrics unravel to reveal the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of a young woman (“At the edge of the riverbed/That’s where they found her/The water washed her feet/…He swears he never put his hands on her”). It’s the kind of brooding, insidious songwriting you’d imagine Thom Yorke would be proud of, full of smart widescreen cinematography (“There is gravel underfoot/And above the viaduct/Cast a shadow where she lay”).

It’s a little bloated at over an hour, but by in large Falling Off Maps have recovered admirably from past deflating musical experiences to put together an accomplished LP. Its reflection and imagery is melancholic, but a clear vein of hope runs throughout A Seaside Town In Winter; it’s clear that while all the hardships of winter have to be endured, spring is never far round the corner.