Hurts are a curious phenomenon. Debut album Happiness was a well-crafted synthpop ode to the pop of Depeche Mode, though the resultant singles never bothered the charts too much. Now the twosome are back with Exile, bolstered by solid buzz and support that probably could have helped them out the first time round. Like we said: curious.
It's also an appropriate word to describe Exile. What the band have revealed so far has been majestic - Exile and house favourite The Road (below) - but the album begins unsteadily, struggling to find the balance between the macabre chamber pop they're known for and the thumping stadium-rock to which they apparently now seem to aspire.
A winning trio brings the mid-section back to the Hurts sound. Cupid is a joyous Muse-lite descendant that's a lot better than we're making it sound, Mercy flows with swelling choruses and swirling rock crescendo, and if there's a more affecting pop ballad than The Crow in 2013 we'll eat our copy of Wonderful Life.
But the album peters out at the end. It's not that Exile is a disappointing album - Theo Hutchcraft knows his metier well enough to prevent that happening, and there's more heart here than most of the Top 40 - it merely comes across inconsistent and at least three tracks too indulgent to be truly memorable. Genuinely stunning in parts, but the monochrome duo aren't quite reinventing the (colour) wheel yet.