Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin seem to find themselves perennially on the fringe; in spite of a steady stream of good press, and two albums of consistently nifty indie rock under their belts, they have simply yet to catch the break they need. There’s been no big breakout single or ear-catching Thermals-style concept album about the impending collapse of whatever – the band are far more content to trundle about on their own terms. And y’know what? The band don’t give a fuck – as they say it themselves, they’re “just circling around the critical drain.” Consequently, although their new producer, Death Cab guitarist extraordinaire Chris Walla, has broadened their musical horizons and given the record a slight gloss, Let It Sway, the band’s third LP, takes a conscious choice not to shake things up too drastically.

‘Back in the Saddle’, which calmly thrums its way out of the speakers with some chiming guitars and martial drums, before giving way to a surprisingly arena-ready chorus; it’s a striking opener, but its restless nature and overstuffed never really allows you to settle, especially over its almost mathy, time-signature-changing outro. You can’t fault them for trying something slightly more adventurous – for example, a couple of of suite-like segues work beautifully – but when it comes to power pop, there’s no point fixing what ain’t broke. And there’s the catch – power pop is a hard style to master, because it’s difficult to find a sound of your own, and while SSLYBY fare far better when they stick to what they know best, the album’s highlights are all too reminiscent of other groups; ‘Banned (by the Man)’ – loaded with “na-na-na”‘s and chunky power chords – sounds like a lost outtake from Fountains of Wayne’s classic debut, while ‘In Pairs’ loads Wolf Parade on mild sedatives and welds it to a carnivalesque guitar solo, and the album’s most memorable hook – “Not all God’s creatures come in pairs, y’know…”

The biggest problem with the album, however, is its sequencing; after the album’s first half leaves you almost ready to write it off, the curiously-placed ‘Stuart Gets Lost Dans Le Metro’ kicks off side two, the album gets something of a second wind. A spiralling acoustic statement of defiance, ‘Stuart”s haunting lyrics dissect two people who are (to quote another indiepop obscurity) doomed, lo-fi and in love, as they assure each other “this is for us not them.” That this gorgeous moment leads into the album’s two jauntiest efforts – the punky thrash of ‘All Hail Dracula!’ and the aforementioned ‘Critical Drain’, which seems to have anticipated this review long before it got written – shows that the band may not be too great at putting an album together, but song-for-song, they can at least raise a smile.

On its own merits, Let It Sway is a solid effort, peddling interesting arrangements of catchy tunes; sadly, there’s too little here that could be described as sounding unique to the band. Sway sounds neither underwritten or overworked, but is still nowhere near as consistently compelling as it occasionally threatens to be. Something tells me that there’re a great collection of songs in this band just yet, and while they assure us of their status as spiders dancing in the indie rock bathtub, they don’t quite sound ready to be washed down the plughole.