Alongside the View, the Young Knives and Maps, New Young Pony Club were nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2007. Six years later and many would struggle to recall the band’s “nu-rave” debut and, probably, what nu-rave meant in the first place. Six years later, and on only their third album, the band might be suffering an identity crisis themselves. Down from four members to two (their name similarly reduced), Tahita Bulmer and Andy Spence are now something between a retro synth-pop act and practitioners of edgy electronica. On tracks such as Things Like You and Overtime, the sound is flat and familiar, like a dulled cross between ESG and Beats International. On Sure As the Sun and You Used to Be a Man however, there is real excitement: complex rhythms and polyphonic melodies echo evocatively across empty spaces. There is a sense of refinement here, even if it is not carried across the whole album – indeed, so much better produced are some tracks than others you wonder if they ran out of time or money. So while there is a faint whiff of decline and fall about the re-emerged NYPC, there are also glimmers of rebirth. The curse of the Mercury may yet be shaken off.