Napoleon IIIrd, or James Mabbett to the electoral register, sprang fully-formed out of a Wakefield bedroom and into the alterna-pop consciousness in 2007 with his idea-packed debut In Debt To. It was as imaginative an album as anyone has managed this decade in a much-abused style, melding samples, beats, electronics and antique keyboard abuse with lo-fi guitar-based packages of wonder, fervent lyrical declarations, and heartfelt vocals. Now he's back (in advance of a second full length due later in the year) with a seven track mini-album named after the winner of the 1949 Nobel prize for Physics, Hideki Yukawa - a man famed for his work in the field of subatomic particles. No, really, in context of this musical worldview it all makes perfect sense.That said, it doesn't start on the best footing. There's nothing particularly bad about the stop-start power-pop sound of 'Zebra', or the fact it's about the titular animal's impending extinction, but it's not the Napoleon IIIrd I've come to know and love. That is to say, the sense of something unexpected lurking around the corner of every verse and chorus. But to my relief this is immediately demonstrated on track two, 'The Strong Nuclear Force', when Mabbett morphs into an 8-bit Prince in minimal funk mode, complete with a throaty soul-music scream. Having shown a flash of what he's capable of, Mabbett then disappears down his own path once again. On the more tentative 'This Haircut Generation', Mabbett coasts through long rhythmic vocal sections before declaiming "the sky won't hold aeroplanes any more" over jackhammer beats. 'Your God' ("two clockwork monkeys stamping their feet out of turn", apparently) is based around acoustic guitar and electronic drum loops, subtly building a DIY Krautrock effect. The more downhome, slower moments of In Debt To are audible in the 'The Down Stroke', which begins like Talk Talk then develops into a handclap loop and foreboding vocal before ending with a minimal piano section. The late night closer 'See Life' has a stately air that's rudely interrupted by big cymbals and eventually overtaken almost entirely by the return of the Disney fanfare horns before a whirlwind of effects threatens to take everything right off into the sunset then disappearing as quickly as they appeared. Inbetween comes 'The Sky Is Too High', a game go at adding some Montreal post-rock textures, kicking off with nearly two minutes of ambient noise and plangent guitar before deciding it'd rather host a party here at the end of the world, and breaking out drum machines and shivering shards of synths, cultivating an oppressive sonic backdrop. For a seven and a half minute ambient instrumental, it's gripping.So what does it reveal about the intentions of his sophomore full-length? It's hard to say. But this release shows that Napoleon IIIrd has a mastery of his expansive musical domain, and the journey from In Debt To to Hideki Yukawa to whatever comes next will be fascinating, and full of invention almost unbecoming. 83%mp3:> Napoleon IIIrd: ‘Zebra’ [EXCLUSIVE]Napoleon IIIrd on MySpace