Band of Horses recently burst back into prominence with their second album, “Cease To Begin”, a distinct improvement from their debut effort, 2006’s “Everything All The Time”. The collection plays with more sounds and styles, and reflects the band growing up and moving back home to South Carolina, and has a bit more of a country tinge to their dreamy indie-rock/pop.

Opening with the beautiful highlight of the album, “Is There A Ghost?”, is a rocker and a half for angels on clouds. Yes, that might sound a bit strange, but once you’ve heard it we think you’ll agree – from its dreamy beginning, things start to accelerate, whilst still being exceptionally beautiful and tight.

Seamlessly blending into second track, “Ode to LRC”, a tale of growing up and realising that times have changed – “The town is so small / How could anybody not / Look you in the eyes / The way that you drive by”. However, whilst it fits in musically, lyrically it’s a bit lacking – “The world is such a wonderful place / La di da, La di da, La di da, La di da”. Hardly up there with the likes of Morrissey (from The Smiths), Bob Dylan or Sufjan Stevens is it?

Whilst parts of the album can be quite slow, relaxing and almost dream-like in their musical stylings, Band of Horses also show a rockier side of themselves with tracks such as “Islands on the Coast”, a brilliant song for those dark and stormy January nights.

Their new-found country influences are at the forefront on tracks such as “The General Specific” and “Marry Song”. Both clearly are not the work of a band in suburban Seattle (where the first album was written and recorded), with “General Specific” taking on a distinctive honky-tonk stomp about their return down South (“it's 80 degrees, the end of December was coming on / When the showing up ends, going back to the south”).

Finishing up the album with the double header of “Cigarettes, Wedding Bands”, and the dreamiest of the album, “Window Blues”, we can’t help but feeling a tiny bit disappointed that they hadn’t continued the momentum that they started with. On “Cigarettes, Wedding Bands”. The band seem to have lost the energy to convey the bitter lyrics, instead settling for a relatively sickly-sweet pop-rock combination instead of the venomous track it could have been.

Though the album is an improvement on their debut, we can’t help but feel that the collection loses momentum as the tracks progress from the initial amazing moment of “Is There A Ghost?”. Overall an amazing sophomore effort, and hopefully their third album will be a bit more consistent.