Three years on, from arguably one of the best electro indie-pop albums for years and tipped to follow in the footsteps of New Order, Manchester trio Delphic have fell victim to the unfortunate second album syndrome.
It seems the band have tried to reinvent their sound on this latest offering, but seem to have got lost somewhere along the way through the land of Dubstep and R ‘n’ B. These ingredients, added with the familiar foundations we saw on ‘Acolyte’, end up with this confused, unexplainable, sophmore release.
Album opener, ‘Of The Young’ gets up in your face and gives you the impression that this could be the start of something great. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there; quite rapidly.
The single ‘Baiya’ offers a nice b-side for a future Friendly Fires single, with their new mix of genres, that leaves this track just out of favour. Whilst ‘Atlas’ offers the same, but, again, fails to strike anything that you’d really willingly occupy your time with.
You get the feeling the band had great ideas for this record, but just haven’t been able to create the final end product that so many were anticipating. ‘Tears Before Bedtime’ remains the stand out track and maybe that one song that has worked, with their new R ‘n’ B influx.
This album is proof that reinventing doesn’t always work and it’s sometimes best to keep to the sound that works. After all, their début made them exciting; so why fix what isn’t broken?
The band have failed to relaunch themselves at a time when artists with a similar sound, like Disclosure and Bastille, are really opening the scene and flying into mainstream success. If they were capable of manifesting anything near the magnitude of ‘Acolyte’, you’d have fancied their chances of excelling further, but instead this will be swept under the carpet as they watch other acts take their spotlight.
Third time lucky for the mainstream success and bigger venues boys …