Sophistication is a hard thing to get right – a hard attribute to earn and perhaps even a confusing badge to have pinned on your breast. While it can be easily mistaken for smarm or perceived as valuing style over content in many musical scenarios,Francois & The Atlas Mountains achieve sophistication with ease and wear it with charm. This, along with a few other key attributes, is what make F&TAM’s fifth “studio” release (if a church in a French village count as a studio) such a warm, luxuriant delight.

Francois himself was drawn to the UK, and Bristol in particular, by the burgeoning scene and rich history it boasted – and while he may cite Massive Attack et al as key influences, more readily in evidence are the rich atmospherics of fellow European troubadour Jens Lekman and legendary Scot songwriter Roddy Frame.

“Am I a dream in which you’ve found a home?” asks the opening line of the opening track ‘Les Plus Beaux’ and for the next 11 songs the answer is largely in the affirmative; the enveloping ‘Azrou Tune’ in particular sounding somewhere between a forgotten classic torch song and an old Disney ballad – its “what is in your glass, do you want some more?” lyric typifying the delicious comfort this record offers.

‘Muddy Heart’ eases itself from the speakers with a Go-Betweens-meet-John-Squire riff that chimes beautifully with an insistent, piano-driven refrain: “I’m trying to please you” chants Francois before decrying the possibility of an easy life with “but you want everything to be clean and clear” – clearly not a possibility in the dizzying, sticky world of love.

Romance is another keyword. ‘Edgde of Town’ positively drips with it, all juddering snippets of guitar, lo-fi beats that bring to mind Babybird or perhaps Momus and evocative, tender vocal parts; ‘Cherchants Des Ponts’ too fills the heart with rich strings and a female vocal that lays gently alongside Francois’ slightly mannered Darren-Hayman-kissing-Jeff-Buckley tone.

The most “obvious” track here certainly has an appeal – the Aztec Camera smartpop of ‘City Kiss’ is indeed a TUNE, and though hampered by clumsy lyrics manages in its bilingual delivery (the album as a whole is a fair 50/50 split between French and English) to both touch and convey the joy of fresh, if complicated, modern world relations.

It’s also worth looking out for a neat trick on ‘Slow Love’ which begins as a Destroyer-style ’80s pastiche before a few simply picked out piano notes reveal it to be an altogether more substantial beast. Clever. Sophisticated. See?

There are stutters of course. ‘Buried Treasures’ is an almost Britpop mid-’90s plod, and while later on the album abandons the carefully crafted melodies in favour of more experimental approaches as on the droning, apocalyptic ‘Bail Eternal’ and the Zun Zun Egui-aping electronica wig-out ‘Piscine’, we still close with a perfectly formed pop song in the shape of ‘Do You Want to Dance?’ a slow and simple, sexy strum that sings with guitar jangle and smiling swagger.

So while we have a good deal of intellect, of romance, of smart instrumentation and of deliciously correct reference points what we also have is a record involving enough to give schmindie a good name and, hopefully, to allow this subtle, straining talent the chance to give sophistication a new poster boy.

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