Album: Turin Brakes, Outbursts (Cooking Vinyl)

Give them credit: with each new album, Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian attempt something different. It doesn't always work – the "dark" sound of Ether Songs (2003) sounded forced, and since then the band seemed to forget what it was people loved about them in the first.

Happily, Outbursts finds them reinvigorated and back in control. There's a soft-rock, almost countryish 1970s feel that perfectly suits them and finds the pair in better voice than at any time since The Optimist, their Mercury-nominated debut.