Fuzzy Lights - Twin Feathers (Little Red Rabbit)

Though expanding occasionally to a quintet, the driving force behind Fuzzy Lights remains husband and wife duo Xavier & Rachel Watkins, who have quietly built up a firm fan base over the last few years from their Cambridge HQ.

While their 2008 album A Distant Voice mixed folk roots with reverbed guitar, niggling percussion and electronic sprinkles, this latest seems a step back with listless angst replacing musical muscle.

Perhaps a busy 2009, touring with the likes of Vetiver and Willard Grant Conspiracy, has made the Watkins turn moodily inward, though that idea doesn't wash with the fact that earlier this year they released a 4-track EP - Helm - that is considerably better than most of the tracks on this album.

Why they didn't put 2010 tracks as good as 'Things We Left Behind' on this album is a mystery, though initially the absence isn’t too sorely missed, with the acoustic melancholia of 'Obscura', the wintry folk-meets-keening guitar of 'Fallen Trees' and the downbeat film soundtrack-y 'Museum Song' offering early promise.

But then you realise nothing is really going to shift beyond the album's basic template of glacially slow guitar patterns mixed with downbeat violin/fiddle motifs, occasionally offset with Xavier's fairly tuneless voice. Where before they offered layers from the off, here they serve up disjointed slices of music where several minutes of near dirge suddenly give way to a couple of minutes of whingy guitar.

Only 'Lucida' - a track written a couple of years ago - really raises its head above the quagmire of musical gloom, with its use of accordions and a yearning string melody.

It’s a shame to see a band apparently going backwards. Listening to tracks like 'Mountain Top' from their 2006 Untitled EP, Twin Feathers feels like something stripped back so far it doesn't really work any more.