eckless Engineers was the first effort by these scarlet-cheeked, fair-haired young lads from Birmingham, England. It was an album that sought a marriage between the desert drift of Calexico to the wind in tree murmur of Labradford, with scudding dark clouds of Hood drooping in the fairground as best man. As one may well imagine, an album rife with so many parties proved overcrowded. The proceedings lacked organization: guests such as ‘melancholy guitar’, ‘scratchy electronics’ and ‘drowsy drones’ mingled obtrusively; scuttling in and out of each track at their own precarious whim; now and then nodding off when a piece babbled on for too long; and at last giving a start when the pasture of a song hit a most startling note. In a word, these lads were endowed with an aptitude for ‘preaching’, they stemmed from a fine background and they gave hint of their own creativity; focus was simply needed so as to better articulate these gifts.

After numerous a seasons change, with Against The Pull Of Autumn, Epic 45 make it clear they have been attending to their development. The songs still gasp out black plumes of smoky ambient clouds, they still sprout nervous electronics vibrating like lapping waves and the birthmark which links them to Hood, Slowdive and Do Make Say Think has not dried up. But a seat has been designated for each of these guests; each is now instructed where to sit; and the late-comer’s and more rowdy parties have been amiably shown the door, affording this attempt a more well-focused, professional luster. “I’m Getting Too Young For This” exudes a tender, autumnal guitar pattern that wraps around feral drum programming which mimics the jerky nature of a hilly plain. Suddenly, rather English vocals pour in like molten metal into a furnace, fuelling the piece onward. These nostalgic, breezy voices, which make their appearance more frequently than on Reckless Engineers, accentuate the grassy, autumnal themes and remind of strolls through worn gravel paths, breathing in the air from the leaves, like the scent of some overpowering perfume. And like a traveler lost in the forest, where every path keeps bringing one back to the same place, behind each lyric looms the woe of a relationship somehow tattered.

Electronics are prominent and hazy, lapsing into organic instrumentation like a glaring sun bathing in tree leaves. The pacing of these proceedings is skillfully varied, veering between exuberant discharges where guitar and percussion frolic about and others where sullen piano plods along through foggy ambient mists. By and large, these are extended compositions, but shorter works are interspersed so as to maintain a spontaneous feel. “Sculpted By Winter” sees the boys toying with added instrumentation, namely, a lovely cello whose laborious sighs, set against a wallowing hum, sparks a lonely late-night full moon image.

As the ceremonies carry on without a hitch, however, one finds a reluctance of those involved to take any risks. Guests such as the aforementioned ‘scratchy electronics’ and ‘melancholy guitar’ now pay meticulous attention to all manners common and their conversation is rather cordial and pleasing to the ear, but as is often the problem with similar minded acts such as Manual, as attractive as they may be, they nevertheless fail to quench ones appetite for destruction. The efforts in “Where To Now, Captain?” as well as others are aesthetically pleasing yet they entail relatively no risk and seem a tad too rational. For all this, the final two pieces urge one to keep hope. “Secret Maps Of England” is a myriad of pastoral acoustic guitar, drum programming as slender as a willow and reedy clarinet, while closer “River Traffic” sees said guitar and whistling ambience storming off to a jubilant peak. Like the characters of a certain novel, Epic45 saturate themselves in the beauty of memory, but unlike those characters they nibble away at those which got away rather than those which never happened.