The second album from Swedish five-piece Those Dancing Days sees them take a huge step forward in realising and expanding the considerable promise with which they burst on to the scene prior to their debut album in 2008. Whilst In Our Hero Space Suits was certainly a vivacious and bold debut, it simultaneously lacked substance and often fell flat because of it. Following three years of touring and tightening their band unit though this kinesis has become second nature, and they’ve used the time to hone other facets of their sound to great effect.

For Daydreams & Nightmares the band worked mainly with producer Patrik Berger (Robyn) but also Max Martin (Katy Perry), who both bring a great command of pop dynamics to the table and tracks like ‘I’ll Be Yours’ sound devilishly slick here with the hooks being accentuated without sacrificing any of their intensity. Berger though has also worked with In Flames and plays in a screamo band himself, something which seems to have helped highlight the interesting polarities in Those Dancing Days talents. Those saccharine melodies and memorable choruses sit atop propulsive drumming and almost aggressive tempos which often wouldn’t seem out of place on a hardcore record. In fact more often than not it’s Cissi Efraimsson’s drumming in which everything else centres around, treading a fine line between chaos and taut precision which enables the band to toy with pop songs in such a novel and often intense manner. The best example being the rollicking sass of ‘Fuckarias’ which is drenched in stuttering new wave synths, lashing guitars and Linnea Jönsson’s growl of “you’re in my space, get outta my face”. Then there’s the machine gun drumming which shoots opener ‘Reaching Forward’ out of the blocks alongside similarly uncompromising cries of “I deserve to be this good / don’t you bring me down / there is so much more to life than this”.

The force and assuredness with which some of the songs push forth is arguably Daydreams & Nightmares greatest strength throughout. Obviously I wouldn’t want to lend undue focus to the fact that its creators are five rather meek looking hipster girls, but it is difficult to avoid framing it against the current batch of entirely female ‘rock’ bands, and Those Dancing Days cut a pretty lonely figure in this sense. Something which it feels like, at times, this album might just be good enough to inspire a shift in. Whilst this might be an interesting angle to consider it’s not the most important aspect here, and the merit of these songs would be none diminished if that wasn’t the case. Also there are still more tender moments here to offset the ferocity such as closing track ‘One Day Forever’, a delicately intimate duet with The Maccabees’ Orlando Weeks. There are a few tracks which fail to inspire, with the likes of ‘When We Fade Away’, ‘Forest of Love’ and ‘I Know Where You Live pt.2’ all seeming like tired re-treads of ideas applied much more effectively on other tracks.

Daydreams & Nightmares does just about everything you could ask from a sophomore effort, it refines the groups original appeal whilst pushing out in interesting new directions. So yeah, it might not all work out perfectly but it definitely points to a band becoming more confident with each new step and who are plenty deserving of the critical success that their original hype had looked set to afford them a few years ago.