Melt, the second long-player from Boxed In, is a flawed, but ultimately good album. It’s mostly made up of well-crafted, well-produced synth-pop with occasional flashes of originality and brilliance.

The most interesting moments come from the interplay between the electric and the acoustic. On ‘Shadowboxing’, the tight, acoustic drums provide so much more for the song than if they had been programmed drums. Similarly, on ‘Intro’ (one of my favourite songs on the album), the faintly audible clicks that came from the sound of Bayston’s fingers on the synth are almost exhilarating.

It has to be said that this album is a little hackneyed. Far too much LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip and New Order are present on this album, and it detracts from what is pretty sound songwriting. Not to say these are bad influences, if you’re going to imitate anyone, LCD and New Order are pretty bloody great – but where’s the pizazz in that? That said there are still original moments: there’s an almost jazzy feel to ‘London Lights’ with a lovely meandering, swinging beat (although this track unfortunately ends up saturated again with Hot Chip cliches).

‘Black Prism’ is a stand-out track for me. It’s got a scarily ambient, schizophrenic feel to it and it is wonderful to hear a Boxed In track without that faintly annoying drum beat that’s present on lots of their songs (you know the one…).

Although I’ve been quite critical of this album, there’s obviously good songwriting on show, and some great hooks and melodies. It will be interesting to hear their next effort, and hopefully on album three, Boxed In will start planting seeds in the original furrow they ploughed on Melt.

Will Ainsley