Cymbals follow up their debut, Unlearn, with this conceptual album partly inspired by Princeton academic Daniel T Rodger's book Age of Fracture, which explores how "collective purposes and meanings" have become destabilised. Unlearn was created through a Talking Heads prism, elements of which emerge here on the raw, artful You Are. There is an accompanying short story and a poem to frame this layered new album, which sees Jack Cleverley singing in French on Winter 98 and The End, referencing everyone from Matthew Dear to Junior Boys in the process. The upbeat disco-house of The Natural World is offset by Cleverly's weary vocals, which deepen the New Order-infused Erosion, while This City looks back to Cymbals' earlier, scrappier work. The scrappiness has been softened for their second record, with mixed results. Still, Like an Animal illustrates how far they've come: an almost nine-minute protean composition that begins with melancholy reflection and builds to percussive joy.
Download: The Natural World, Like an Animal