For The Birds

Consequently, The Frames have often been a little too porous for their own good, suggestible kids put up to acts of petty larceny from sources as varied as The Waterboys, The Pixies, Jeff Buckley, Led Zeppelin and Pavement. Playing the cynic, you could say this year's targets are Will Oldham and many of the Touch And Go/Chicago post-rock acts, but in fact, through utilising a dazzling panoply of sounds and styles, they are at last beginning to develop a skin thick enough to withstand their influences. For The Birds is, as both the title and the opening instrumental 'In The Deep Shade' indicate, a quare hawk. Steve Albini might've midwifed some of these sessions, but don't go expecting some mongrel amalgam of Surfer Rosa and Ocean Songs. Or if you do, prepare to make do with the brutalising five-minute secret track tacked onto the end.

Instead, we've got a collection of often sparse and heartfelt tunes overlaid mostly with Colm Mac An Iomaire's elegiac drones and co-producer and ex-dEUS man Craig Ward's collection of Lips/Rev-type ephemeral textures, all underpinned by the subtlest rhythm section in the parish.

When this combination works - which is most of the time - it's peerless; witness the rolling landscapes of 'Lay Me Down' and 'What Happens When The Heart Just Stops' or the skewed alt-country of 'Mighty Sword'. Here, you realise just how important the supporting players are to Hansard's vision of a kind of sci-fi folk art, and hope he's never tempted to pursue a solo career. In fact, 'Headlong' is a classic case of how the band's dynamics elevate a simple pleading melody into a tear-jerking tour de force. Elsewhere, the fruit is stranger: the avant-pop of 'Early Bird', or the Velvets-y sparks of 'Santa Maria'.

Make no mistake; this one's a grower. I've lived with it for three weeks, and I'm still finding fresh details with every spin.