The Bookhouse Boys – Tales To Be Told

The Bookhouse Boys do not live in a happy world. From the gloomy swirl of Gone – which opens the London group's second long player – to the edgy riffing of epic closer History, there is a clear disaffection running right through the middle of Tales To Be Told. On Guns Like Drums, Paul Van Oestren's intones in his memorable baritone that "dark clouds gather" and once they've set in they don't shift, lingering in a way that recalls Nick Cave. It’s an understandable aesthetic for a band presumably named after a secret society in David Lynch's classic TV freak out Twin Peaks.

Variety To Forgive introduces second vocalist Catherine Turner who adds some much appreciated variety to a record which, although strong and inventive, runs the risk of burying itself in its own theatric mirk. More questionable are the Evanescence-style compressed guitars on that track, but before they can get proper-teen angsty, mariachi trumpets kick in and the landscape morphs from Transylvania to Morricone land. It's ambitious, affecting stuff, at its best when the vocal interplay between Turner and Van Oestren tumbles into a cinematic force.