The Dutch town of Twente isn’t really known for its music. If anything it's known for its football club FC Twente, and mainly then for an interview in which ex-England manager Steve McClaren adopted a Dutch ‘accent’ for a pre-Champions League interview. But things are changing, as a psych-prog-pop quartet Pauw, are making waves home and abroad. Consisting of Rens Ottink on drums, Brian Pots on guitar and vocals, Eszl Du Voiis on bass and Kees Braam on keyboards, they are gaining a reputation in their native Holland and anywhere they play for incendiary live shoes and beautifully crafted EPs. Now they’ve released their debut album, Macrocosm Microcosm.

Opening track ‘Memories’ sounds like Belle and Sebastian. In fact ‘Memories’ is what I imagined Girls in Peactime Want to Dance would sound like, it’s dancey, but undeniably indie pop, with clever insightful lyrics. ‘Memories’ is chocked full of bouncy beats and bass, but with one of the strongest melodies in recent times, that holds everything together perfectly. Oh and the vocals have the right balance of sugary sweetness to them, so the whole thing isn’t overpowering and saccharine. ‘Today Never Ends’ ramps up the prog factor with gushing organ and soaring guitars. While it has the same effect as ‘Memories’, its takes its time to get to there. The melodies and levels of psych are equal to the opening, but due to the meandering build, they lose their urgency. That being said everything is covered in a delicious pop sheen. After listening to lead single ‘Visions’ you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a cover of something from The Dark Side of the Moon. Swirling soundscapes wrap around Potts’ vocals, taking everything to a hitherto unimagined level.

‘Shambhala’ is the standout track. Throughout its duration faux-shoegazing, reverb drenched vocal verses rub shoulders with full on psych-outs, chocked with jangling bells, chimes, sitar sounding guitars and a rhythm section that sounds likes it’s been lifted from Richard Rush’s Psych-Out soundtrack. This is more than revivalism. Instead of trying to create the sound of a scene that never existed, Pauw have made a track full of their collective loves, and what’s more it sounds all the more authentic for it. At its logical conclusion ‘Shambhala’ fades into ‘Abyss’. This track lives up to its title, as it’s a dense, almost claustrophobic at times track that starts off with a motif, only to skew and sway into something else, before jutting and juddering back to the original idea, without losing momentum or the idea of what the track is about. Final track ‘Glare (Part 2)’ closes the album in a fitting fashion with seven-and-a-half minutes of agitated, churning psych that swooshes, whorls and surges until its blissful outro.

Macrocosm Microcosm is an accomplished and ambitious record that works on every level. Yes at times you know exactly what’s going to happen, and what their collective musical loves are, but this doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of it. Pauw are basically a love in between prog space soundscapes and dreampop sensibilities. There is a massage of massive soundscapes but they are coupled with delicious hooks and melodies that keep everything grounded and moving, rather than drifting off into the ether with their weighty ideas about composition and instrumentation.