Album: School of Seven Bells, Ghostory (Full Time Hobby)

Darker, dreamier, dancier: so might run the motto of these New Yorkers, who began life as estoeric shoegaze revivalists but have shorn a member and streamlined their sound on the way to this third album.

Glassy-eyed goth-pop is the order of the day, thriving off driving bass/drums, amniotic electronics and spectrally forlorn vocals. At its best on the quasi-techno anthem "Low Times", it's claustrophobically compelling, if too formulaic to be truly super-natural.