The Butterflies of Love
Orbit Around You / In A Blizzard In A Lighthouse

Listening to a couple of Butterflies Of Love songs back to back can sometimes make you feel like you're hearing the work of two different bands. On the one hand the band's often laidback, hyper-mellow REM-pop can veer just too far, too long down that middle stretch on the road, a stretch normally reserved for a broken white line. On the other, however, they can occasionally break out into pacey, uptempo jaunts not incomparable to The Shins, which implies that they do know how to use the overtaking lane after all.

This record fits the above bill perfectly: 'Orbit Around You', for all its sentimental flurry and admittedly hummable melody, is instantly forgettable thirty seconds after it's finished; 'In A Blizzard In A Lighthouse', though, is totally different. It pulls out all the stops in a haphazard manner the likes of the Jesus And Mary Chain and The Lilys managed a decade or so ago.

Overall not bad, then, but there's still room for improvement. The really frustrating thing about this band though is that 'In A Blizzard In A Lighthouse' is damning proof that they've got it in them to conjure up something really special... one day.