Midlake - 'The Trials of Van Occupanther' (Bella Union) Released 05/06/06

As entertaining a flick as 'Almost Famous' is, in one respect Cameron Crowe's warm-hearted stroll through 1973 rock 'n' roll Babylon demands a bit much from the viewer's capacity for gullibility. The movie expects us to believe that the imaginary band Stillwater are capable of sending paying audiences and music hacks alike into a drooling, superlative-sprouting frenzy, which isn't exactly easy considering the lameness of their bog-standard sub-Bad Company boogie.

Had the rapidly ascending made-up group at the heart of the story been Midlake, their route to whopping popularity and the cover of the Rolling Stone would have been much easier to swallow. The five-piece from Denton, Texas is of course a genuine operational outfit, but the dazzling imagination showcased throughout their sublime second LP 'The Trials of Van Occupanther' suggests they'd have no gripes with taking on a fictional role.

In the album's wonderful world, mundane reality makes only fleeting appearances amidst childlike flights of fancy and enchanting fantasies of life in a mysterious remote community of unspecified vintage. On these 11 tracks, would-be brides run off to the woods, the album title's village inventor (or is that idiot?) works tirelessly on a curious project whilst dreaming of escape, mountaineers construct cabins from cedar and stone, an honest day's work is something to savour, and the protagonist yeans to be relieved of his possessions. Not in the sanctimonious hippie style of 'Imagine', mind, but rather as a purifying setback of the kind his equally austere peers would look up to.

Musically, they'd fit the early Seventies bill perfectly. In their search for inspiration, Midlake rewind a few years from the uptight angst and twitchily spiky sounds of Talking Heads, worship of whom is epidemic amongst the current ranks of high-profile North American indie, and several from the contemporary points of reference - Grandaddy, Flaming Lips, Radiohead - of their acclaimed debut 'Bamnan and Silvercork'. The tuneful results on tracks such as 'Roscoe', which marries a revved-up Creedence Clearwater Revival chug to an ample embarrassment of hooks, are almost dizzyingly rich in soaring melodies for ears accustomed to the tune-starved yelping of the angular post-punk brigade. The breathtakingly beautiful majesty of the mini-epic 'Bandits' and the resigned dusky melancholia of 'Branches', meanwhile, resemble Neil Young covering Joni Mitchell - direct and dreamy in delivery, complex and constantly evolving in composition and structure.