We Were Promised Jetpacks – In the Pit of the Stomach

If you name your second album In The Pit Of The Stomach, anything less than gut-punching is going to disappoint. Opener Circles And Squares is a long way from disappointing: gargantuan riffs clamour over Adam Thompson’s distinctive bellows, before a boldly-conducted coda pushes the track into ‘personal best’ territory.

It’s a gutsy rebuttal to the whole concept of ‘Difficult Second Album Syndrome’ – the first of several confident strides forward for the Edinburgh quartet. Recorded in Sigur Rós’ Icelandic studio, We Were Promised Jetpacks don’t evoke ‘glaciers’ so much as ‘massive fuck-off rock capable of tearing the surrounding landscape a new one’: lead single Medicine and Human Error are burly and bold, repeatedly nudging your hand to towards the volume dial. It’s not quite perfect – a little spark dissipates whenever they take the foot off the pedal – but on those (numerous) occasions where the band locks in and nails it, the Jetpacks truly soar. [Chris Buckle]