Autolux - Transit Transit (ATP)

It’s been six years since LA-based trio Autolux - Carla Azar, Greg Edwards and Eugene Goreshter - released their much-praised debut Future Perfect, and they’ve apparently been working on the songs gathered here since 2006, in between opening for A-listers like PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke and doing their first US headline tour last year.

After such a long gestation, it‘s a relief this second album is awesome rather than overwrought. Looking for musical comparisons isn’t easy due to the distinctiveness of the songs, but at different times you hear echoes of everyone from Joy Division to Joy Zipper. But comparisons can’t really give a flavour of how distinctive these songs are - the title track, for example, manages nods to both Bjork and Cinematic Orchestra during its beautiful, stately piano-infused progress.

Vocals are another strong point, with each of the trio providing magnificent individual input or coming together for sweet harmonies, nowhere better than on the wonderfully constructed 'The Bouncing Wall' with its eclectic array of little aural depth-charges from a jokily plodding intro to delicious retro synth shudders.

'Supertoys' allies a sweetly melancholic lyric with a musical setting that blends elements of 80s grunge with late 60s dark psychedelia, while the superb 'Census' is an avant-garage fusion of disjointed guitar and spine-tingling breathy vocals.

The eerily hypnotic 'Highchair' combines drum machine beats with lo-fi overdubs to sound like a more melodic take on Throbbing Gristle, while 'Kissproof' finds fuzzed guitar niggling beneath a vocal whose trippy delivery contrasts with its bitter sentiments - a trick that also marks out 'Headless Sky', whose jagged guitar provides a compelling setting for the fragile vocal.

This album may have been years in the offing but crafted magnificence is the result.