Brian! Brian! Brian!Wilson!Wilson!Wilson!Genius!Genius!Genius! Glad I got that out of the way.

Aussie oddball Luke Steele is not any of the above of course but it’s imperative to mention these words when reviewing the music of his Sleepy Jackson outfit…so there, I did it

Second album proper from Luke and co is more of the same but less adventurous, like Soundtrack of our lives with Warners, the major label gets sniff of money to be made and ensures their act irons out the rough edges and sterilizes the inventiveness which made them so attractive in the first place, but it’s not all bad, it doesn’t sound like the indie Ikea of the Kooks.

2003’s debut ‘Lovers’ was, in the age of Strokes, White Stripes and Vines, a surprising and brilliant elegiac pop album, steeped in seventies soft rock smothered in beautiful vocal harmonising and the finest of solo George Harrison guitar riffs, it is deeply psychedelic and of another world, it’s also the best alubm of the 2000’s (sorry, I’m not calling it noughties).

The follow up has it’s moments of pure perfection and of course the harmonizing leads the way, some tracks even have up to 70 different vocal tracks, a classic case of compulsive obsessive disorder if ever there was one.

‘Devil in my yard’, ‘Play a little bit for love’ and lead single ‘God lead your soul’ are three religious sounding nuggets of pop brilliance and’ I understand what you want but I don’t agree’ makes the currently blazing sun shine that little bit brighter, in any mood, these tracks could not fail to put a smile on that face.

Of course, there’s the downside, with so many vocal parts, the tracks suffer and get bogged down in claustrophobia, ‘Dream on’ is anthemic nothingness, ‘God knows’ is major label pleaser probably only recorded because the execs thought the album was too weird and ‘Work alone’ does very little, mellifluously.

Having said that, the good way outshines the bad and it is almost an essential album to own. 7/10

Chris Todd