We Paid Standard Fare

Limbo. It's a funny place to be, but it provided inspiration for the second album from Standard Fare, the Sheffield-based indie-pop power trio who debuted with 2010's The Noyelle Beat, their lovelorn, melodic songs and male/female vocals making them the new darlings of the indie-pop scene. "We're now in our mid twenties - not young and not old, not yet with kids but starting to earn money, starting to see how we fit into the wider world and how we feel about this," says singer/bassist Emma Cooper. "The album's lyrics are a bit more mature than our debut - we didn't want to just write about our romantic failures and frustrations, although they're hard to avoid!"

These 12 tracks, then, concern subject matter as varied as the Holocaust (recent single "Suitcase," written about a survivor and friend of Emma's family who recently passed away), bitterness ("Kicking Puddles"), frustration ("Dead Future"), divided families ("Half Sister") and unfaithfulness ("Early That Night"). With the widening lyrical scope, the album's texture has become more diverse too, with a greater contrast between heavy and light, fast and slow, dancefloor and bedroom. The guitars are beefed up, the melodies are unbeatable and the words are flecked with wicked humour.

Download: Suitcase
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