I Am Kloot - 'Sky At Night' (Shepherd Moon) Released 05/07/10

Many moons ago and tucked away in some sound-proofed mill, I Am Kloot probably toiled away with amps, shot pool, kicked vending machines and swore about the weather in dingy rehearsal rooms with the numerous Mancunian lad-bands, cheerlessly cluttering local bills. A few years on and a couple of well-respected albums later, John Bramwell and his men earnestly unveil ‘Sky at Night’, produced by their counterpart romanticist and dishevelled Northerner, Guy Garvey.

The latest single, 'Northern Skies' is swathed in Garvey’s intoxicating dreaminess, with soaring strings and rousing choral. Listening to such offerings is a tiptoe across a tightrope of clever simplicity. In the same way, over-embellishment and self-pity can lead to a desensitised mirth-gland. 'To The Brink' is a pseudo-shanty of ale and misspent time, which is too overreaching for even the most drizzled-upon misanthropist.

The album progresses to show a range that is vertical as it is broad in arrangement. 'Fingerprints' is stealthier and seductive; tooting saxes and swooning chorals, polished off by a delicate string outro. 'The Moon is a Blind Eye' sounds like their poignant ‘Same Deep Water’. Swelling drums and gentle synths, akin to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s 'Power of Love', give the album a noticeable nu-romantic and nostalgic twist. The boozy, heady brass and wavering trumpets of Same Shoes is the ideal sign-off to an album that fuses, thoughtfulness and drunken ramblings, romanticism with bleak prospects.

'Sky at Night' takes the best of I Am Kloot’s sage tones and presses them through a strainer, to make an organic (and probably vegan) blend of orchestral-indie that is a palatable blend for Elbow fans and post-Madchester followers alike.