By drawing inspiration from the soft, warm, positive sounds of bands like The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac and Wings, The Magic Numbers have gained a reputation for making upbeat, intelligent, dreamy retro-pop with lyrics that focus almost entirely on the ups and downs of life and relationships. As a concept, it’s been well and truly covered by so many bands in the past, but it is one that they clearly have a lot of time and affection for. Much of their material, as you can imagine, walks the tightrope between invigorating and over-egged and this third album is no different.

‘The Pulse’, for instance, is a grand opening with an echoing, pianic heartbeat at it’s centre, around which a classy arrangement of strings serve to enhance the rise-and-fall luxuriance of the vocals. Those strings are our first glimpse of the fine work of Robert Kirby, the maestro composer who worked with the band before he sadly passed away in October last year. He stamps his mark again with the violin-potted ‘The Song That No-One Knows’ and also ‘Dreams Of A Revelation’, although even this input can’t save either of the songs sinking into saccharine reprises of old Bee Gees numbers.

Their previous album, Those The Brokes, received a bit of a mixed reaction, with many pointing to it’s 64-minute running time as the main problem, so it’s interesting to note that this one falls a long way short of that. It’s other saving grace is a significant dark blue vein running through that threatens to burst forth at any moment. Indeed, hiding within all the bumbling makeweights there’s the odd moody, slightly-unhinged vagabond.

While up-tempo tracks like ‘Why Did You Call?’ and ‘Sound Of Something’ sweep the listener up in a warm palm and atypically tickle them into submission, it’s songs like ‘Once I Had’ that are the magic eye-openers. This one toys with minor keys and an effervescent, high-pitched bassline, unexpectedly mirroring the dance-pop savvy of The Cure in places, whilst ‘Restless River’ plunges us into an angular hole, before feeding us back to the surface with a grisly, heartfelt lament.

There are probably many who’d like The Magic Numbers to stay all lovely and fuzzy, but surely progression is the key to longevity. Whilst there’s no doubt that they are still heavily-rooted in the innocence of bygone times, here they’ve revealed just a bit of their somewhat wilder side and that might yet save them from disappearing into middle-aged obscurity.