The Cast Before the Break: Still

As Garry Hoy will tell you, the second time can be a little tricky. You have the element of surprise the first time around, whereas on the second hit, the pressure can be too much and leave you spiralling towards disaster.

In fact, the only thing more ubiquitous than the 'sophomore slump' is the number of album reviews which start off by talking about it.

Your basis for comparison is more limited, that's the main issue we can highlight in considering second albums. Even in the case of Cobra Starship, you can say that their first album was - at the time - quite possibly the best album they've ever made. Come the second and the statically-charged question hangs overhead. Is it as good as the first album?

No, we state with complete ignorance of Hitchcockian suspense-building techniques. But then Still is a completely different album, with little but the voice of front-man T.J. Foster to link it to their full-band début As Your Shoulders Turn On You. Whereas the former seared through shifting tempos, dynamic genre hops and cathartic build-and-releases, this album paces a more thoughtful path. The pulse is slower, the structures less-sprawling, the songs are more considered and there's not a western showdown to be seen anywhere.

For the more indie-minded amongst us, such a seismic shift will come as a relief, for those looking for good post-hardcore which isn't fronted by a floppy-haired androgynous suburbanite, the change is a little disappointing. Thankfully though, the post-rock trappings are still very much in evidence. Opening salvo "Mira" gently constructs the mood with a fragile tinkling riff backed by bass slides before the next track seamlessly shifts in.

Confusingly, considering the softening of the musical edge, the scream-quotant has greatly increased. "A Series of Rooms", a tortoise slow plod through vast chasms of cascading glitter is suddenly interrupted by frenzied screams which sound like a amalgamation of (second-wave) 'screamo' and a Hitler speech. We mean just in terms of delivery there, we wouldn't want to offend the band by comparing them in personality to such a monstrous entity as a 'screamo' band.

Speaking of screams, memorise the phrase "Can I Scream? Yeah! We lack the motion to move to the new beat" for you may need it come the arrival of track nine, "Canyons". While the loss of the purposeful album narrative weighs heavy, Still is considerably more epic, with almost every track masterfully entwining elements of post-rock, indie, rock and small smatterings of post-hardcore. The Cast Before the Break have cemented their position as one of the best bands you can almost guarantee none of your friends will know, and we all know music snobbery is more fun than pushing a slinky down an upwards escalator.

Perhaps "The Hill" best showcases our favourite strength of the band. While we often consider them a spiritual contemporary of Moving Mountains, it's Foster's mastery of oddball vocal techniques - something which MM are somewhat lacking, such as the high upturned pique which masks a complete tonal transformation from the rest of the band.

A usual indicator of a great album's longevity is a lukewarm initial response which gradually climbs by around 2% with each listen. Consider this such an album.