Album Review: Midlake - Antiphon

When a band has a roster change, there's a dogged determinism from the fans that this incarnation will emulate, or indeed transcend, what has come before. When the chief songwriter and singer departs, such enthusiasm wavers and diminishes. For every Pink Floyd, there is a Phil Collins-led Genesis. 2013 sees two bands try to buck this unenviable trend; Yuck delved into a different direction with second record, Glow & Behold, with varying dividends, whilst Texans Midlake break away after Tim Smith's abrupt departure to release Antiphon.

From the opening title track, it's clear the remaining members have steeped their slow-burning aesthetic in pastoral psychedelic mores. An obvious trend, seeing as so much of Midlake's oeuvre flirts with this terrain, but a clever subterfuge – the tracks here hint at familiarity (and in Aurora Gone we have one final vestage of what came before) whilst effectively distancing themselves from Smith's iconic harmonies and lyrical bent. The clear outré highlight is Vale, a sinuous instrumental that weaves its way through the band's past before blasting forth into an elongated space breakdown. It's breathtaking in its precision and energy. Eric Pulido's vocal output is arresting in its own right. He rightfully avoids aping Smith's style, instead evoking a lighter presence that complements rather than becomes the focal point, most evidently on the track The Old And The Young.

The only detractor is indeed the insistence of the band to forge ahead as Midlake. Antiphon proves the ambition that always marked them out as folk-rock outsiders burns fiercely within them still, albeit with a new, crystalline focus.