Dream Cave

Cloud Control follow their harmony-drunk debut with a bigger, dirtier second album, trading jangle for tribal drums and cavernous space without losing the choirboy melodies at their core.

The band recorded partly in a converted barn in rural England, and the record wears that isolation as sound: "Dojo Rising" opens on a stomping, hand-clapped pulse that feels built for a room with high ceilings and no neighbors. "Scar" is the quiet counterweight, a slow tide of vocal harmony that shows how much these four can do with almost nothing. What keeps the album from mere reverb-worship is Alister Wright's willingness to sound wounded rather than merely dreamy. By the title track's close, the echo isn't decoration but a place the songs actually live inside.