Only a few years ago now Broken Records were arguably one of Scotland’s (and certainly Edinburgh’s) great hopes for another big crossover success. Understandably really; their self-titled EP was unashamedly ambitious and heartfelt orchestral folk pop which was by turns intimate and cavernous. Then they were snapped up by 4AD, and the Scottish music community seemed to hold it’s collective breath for the debut album that was sure to propel them in to the spotlight. Then Until The Earth Begins To Part was released and most sighed in disappointment. Not that it was necessarily a bad album but it lacked the gusto of their early tracks and felt horribly over-produced and a wee bit vacuous. At least that’s my interpretation of it, perhaps if I hadn’t become so attached to some the tracks in their original form then I wouldn’t have felt so apathetic towards the album. Teething problems are to be expected though I guess; here we have a batch of entirely new songs for the septet to demonstrate what they’re really capable of and thankfully, for the most part, they seize it.

There’s a little more bombast in some of the tracks on Let Me Come Home with the band notching up the tempo and allowing things to get a little frayed around the edges. When this happens the juxtaposition of the more ramshackle arrangements with the beauty of their rustic instrumentation is quite enthralling. Opener ‘A Leaving Song’ is symptomatic of this with it’s vast canvas of scattered percussion and fizzing brass, it doesn’t even matter that they hit the crescendo several times before the two minute mark and don’t quite recover. This is covered well by the fact that the production is spot-on throughout, finding a perfect middle ground between rough and sheen. ‘A Darkness Rises Up’ as well is the opposite of what it’s title might suggest, if anything it sounds more like a purging of negativity with it’s rolling drums and glimmering piano line dancing amidst swooning strings and lashes of guitar managing to find a wonderful clarity in it’s disorientating waves of sound.

Similarly it’s in these moments that they’re at their least lachrymose, not to say that Jamie Sutherland doesn’t still has a tendency to spit lyrics like a sullen teenager who thinks nobody understands his pain – he does, but it’s less common and with his vocals having been reigned in a little he mostly gets away with it. This is most apparent on standout ‘Dia dos Namorados!’ as his vocals billow gently over a skeletal piano and string arrangement without ever straining beyond mid-tempo, it’s a refreshing counter point to their usual grandiosity. The brooding reverberating piano lament ‘I Used To Dream’ does a similar job and these help to break up the album and offer some rest-bite that was somewhat lacking on their debut.

By the time we finally arrive at closer ‘Home’ things have reached a perfect balance, it’s a beautifully forlorn piece to close things on. The delicate strings and lilting guitar slowed to walking pace and Sutherland’s vocals gradually eased down to quiet, almost whispered speech; it’s a completely arresting comedown from all of the intoxicating splendour which precedes it. If Broken Records were to settle here and call this home, then I’d be more than happy. If they can retain this level of focus and self-restraint then album number three might just garner the success that was initially expected of them, if this one doesn’t do it.