Over the last decade a whole wave of nu-folk acts have gone through various stages of hype, respect and style. The originators of anti-folk, the likes of Jeffrey Lewis and Diane Cluck who began much earlier than your Marlings and Mumfords, took the folk of the sixties and truly subverted the earnestness of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and their contemporaries before Noah and the Whale, Laura Marling and Mumford and Sons began to take a hold in the mid to late-2000s. The two former artists have progressed massively from the point of their “5 Years Time” twee explosion, with Marling continuing to out-do herself and become the poster girl for the singer-songwriter with her intelligent, beautiful albums. Mumford, as we all know, picked up a banjo and then never bloody put it down, but for the most part the acts that engaged in the revival of nu-folk have moved on to pastures new, and the number of folky acts who explicitly write folk music coming through seems to have dwindled.

There are still the copycats of course, with Of Monsters and Men and The Lumineers filtering through to infect all areas of popular consciousness with infinitely syncable, annoyingly catchy folk-tinged tunes but The Melodic are a notable exception to this trend. A British five-piece based in America, it’s impossible to describe their new album Effra Parade as anything other than folk.

The band have recently toured the USA and Canada with Johnny Flynn and it’s clear to see why they would make great touring mates, with The Melodic seemingly inhibiting the multi-instrumentalist approach that Flynn favours, with no member playing fewer that two instruments on stage. The musicianship throughout the record is impressive, no more so that on the large brass sections being married with catchy piano riffs on “Imperfect Me”.

The album makes extensive use of the twee, male/female duet throughout the album, for instance on “Roots”, that calls to mind songs like the Moldy Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You”, but much more intricate.

Finger-picked guitar is a common theme, like on “Lost To You”, where it’s paired with a delicate vocal to form a love song, or on “Plunge” where it marries with several other parts that sound at once incredibly disparate but which come together under the vocal to produce something that feels surprisingly complete.

The record does get a little samey in parts, and at times feels like a soundtrack for another Juno or Away We Go. But the album fits a very particular aesthetic, that of girls with flowers in their hair and long dresses while riding fixie bikes down country lanes before joining a group of impossibly good looking, perfectly dishevelled friends for a picnic in field that is mysteriously free from ants and wasps. It’s a pretty thought, but one that doesn’t always ring entirely true.