Amongst the customary surplus of promotional fluff accompanying this copy of Satellites.02, nestled between the usual fare of track lists and album artwork, are three photographs. They show Johnny Vic (the multi-instrument virtuoso behind the Satellites moniker) wandering amidst an arid, yellowed landscape. Behind him, across the endless expanse of dirt and shrubbery, lines of wind turbines stand in serried ranks. It could be Texas, perhaps – somewhere in the American deep South, at any rate. For Vic – the Copenhagen-based Englishman whose Satellites.01 won acclaim for its invocation of melancholic winter wandering, it feels like a peculiar location for a photo shoot.

When Satellites.01 dropped in early 2011, it was restricted to a pressing of only 500 copies. This limited run meant that while it never bothered the mainstream, the few punters who did chance upon it quickly became diehard supporters. Here, they cried, was an LP that revived the lost art of the album proper. Painstakingly composed and lovingly executed, “Satellites.01″ was simultaneously one of the most accomplished albums of the year, a eulogy to the ever-creeping marginalisation of the Long-Playing record. Vic’s debut trod a precarious path, juxtaposing the intimacy of the singer-songwriter format with the fulsome, orchestral depth of Arcade Fire. “Railways Lines”, for example, the intimate, heart-on-sleeve confessional, is polarised by a sense of stadium-worthy grandeur that we’ve come to expect from Snow Patrol or Sigur Ros. If these contrasting characteristics seem irreconcilable, it is a testament to Vic’s talents that this marriage never once felt strained or contrived. In Satellites.02, however, Vic struggles to walk the same conceptual tightrope.

‘Neon Sun’, for instance, whilst retaining the soaring, expansive sound of Vic’s debut, carries none of its emotional grip – the lyrics feeling more like a patchwork of disjointed one-liners, rather than the threads of an over-arching narrative. And even when the lyrics do hit the mark, it seems the song itself comes up short. ‘God Bless America’ sees Vic take a satirical swing at the proud American ‘Christians’ who insist on carrying shotguns, taking a similar line to Springsteen’s ‘Born In The USA’ without ever aping him too overtly. It’s an intriguing narrative, but this good work is quickly undone by one of the most irritating, radio-jingle-esque backing tracks ever recorded.

By no means is this album a disaster, though – there are many moments of redemption to be found. With ‘Wasteland’, Vic reveals an irrepressible, driving forcefulness that his music hadn’t seemed capable of beforehand. Meanwhile, ‘This Is All That There Is’ is a beautifully crafted track that proves that even if Vic had misplaced his knack for lyrics, his ear for a melody remains firmly attached. Nowhere, though, does there seem to be a killer track that puts the two together.

Come the end of the record then, and that desert photo shoot starts to feel rather fitting. What better way to sum up Satellites.02 – the record trying, and failing, to be in two places at once.