Album: Send For The Sea, Viarosa (Pronoia)

Viarosa's 2006 debut Where The Killers Run drew admiring notices for the skill with which the band transplanted staple Americana styles and subject matter to British surroundings.

But this follow-up rather over-eggs the connection. In its earlier stages, songs such as "Beggars And Thieves" and "Tourniquet" recall a more well-mannered Gun Club, their dark metaphors set to rolling rock gaits streaked with guitar and the viola that comes to dominate the album.

"The Righteous Path" is the kind of walk on the wild side that Nick Cave has made a career from, but Richard Neuberg lacks Cave's ability to convey emotional development, instead declaiming portentously like a cross between Jim Morrison and Tindersticks' Stuart Staples.

The best track, by far, is "Ode To Sunlight", on which the interplay of guitar, violin and flute sends a shaft of light cutting through the gloom.

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