If last year’s release – the acoustic, folk dominated album ‘Flaws’ – proved anything, it’s that Bombay Bicycle Club pay impressively little heed to expectation or convention. For a band whose debut landed them firmly in the indie disco, festival anthem bracket, releasing an album that defiantly went against everything they’d built their fanbase on was a precarious and remarkably confident move – but one that undoubtedly paid off. With ‘A Different Kind Of Fix’ the quartet return somewhat to the electric, upbeat tendencies of their debut, but they’re clearly still more than willing to take the odd risk. Bombay’s third effort is an altogether more complex affair than either of their previous releases. Predominantly guitar-based, but flecked with experimental production and subtle electronics, the album stretches the band’s songwriting scope far, far further than they’ve attempted before. True, there are whiffs of old-school BBC in the staccato, upbeat sing-a-long of single ‘Shuffle’, or the fraught emotional swoops of ‘Bad Timing’ that come on like a subtle take on ‘Magnet’, but the real joys come in the experiments. ‘How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep?’ opens proceedings with a ghostly, reverb-tinged vocal laced through woozy layers of harmony whilst ‘Beggars’ begins with a bare and folky opening before charging into something that resembles Arcade Fire’s ‘Keep The Car Running’. Elsewhere Jack and co. get their pop nous on with the Mystery Jets-indebted ‘Your Eyes’, strip it back with the subtle metre of ‘Favourite Day’ and pepper the brooding basslines and characteristically delicate vocals of ‘What You Want’ with the kind of euphoric synths that should seem insanely out of place but somehow don’t. It’s all remarkably clever, but the final ace is saved until the very end. In closer ‘Still’, the London four-piece outshine anything they’ve conceived to date. Like a lost Radiohead gem, its sparse piano and haunting vocal are unbelievably affecting – like Thom Yorke singing Perfume Genius – it literally stops you in your tracks. Bombay Bicycle Club may have defied expectation again, but with material as strong as this they’re not taking any risks at all.

Lisa Wright