It may be quite the thing these days, but it’s very easy to get shoegaze revivalism wrong. It was pretty easy to get shoegaze wrong first time around, but at least then bands tended to understand that, even if what resorted would often end up as distortion for its own sake, it was about more than the somnambulence suggested by the vocals of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher, or Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell.

Which brings us to The Diamond Sea, a trio from Leeds who’ve supported Sleepy Sun and the Kissaway Trail and are trailed as nostalgic dreampop. Second Move has the tools to build its sonic cathedrals, full of half-murmured vocals by Ben Eyes and louchely forward flowing drums, but for whatever reason decides it’d rather hold back from the full exploration with only the odd electrified howl giving away their initial intention. In fact hardly anything seems to actually go anywhere. The guitar line on ‘Damn Down’ hints at recent Sonic Youth, as the name suggests, but it seems to be happening independently to any drive the song may have. ‘Brand New’ attempts to pep its sleepwalking strum by bringing in an overdriven guitar. It merely sounds like someone playing guitar over an Embrace B-side.

Mind you, having drive seems to be beyond the aimless, drifting nature of Second Move. If it seems odd at first that it opens with a 60s-styled riverside love song based on acoustic guitar and backing harmonies, ‘Stealing’, it becomes apparent that it’s the most alive they’ll sound, and even then it’s a lesser derivative of the post-C86 tweepop sound. The pace hardly changes, and then when it does for the final third it slows down, which brings a whole new level of issues. They may quote Mark Kozelek’s bands and Do Make Say Think as influences but don’t seem to have understood that slow, considered music requires much greater attention to detail and use of spaciousness rather than just playing the same way but at a slower clip. There’s no volume dynamics (aside from ‘Son’, which feels like it finished just as it should have really got going), skyscraping crescendos or fuzzy heroics. In fact, it’s difficult once finished to remember any of it.