“We feel like different people” drummer Thom Green said in an interview this July. How could they not? Their debut An Awesome Wave has gone Platinum in the UK and won them the 2012 Mercury Prize. As I witnessed first-hand in their packed concert on 24th September, this has earned them a large exalting fan-base. But not all members were prepared for this swift life change: bassist Gwil Sainsbury amicably left the group early in the wsecond album’s recording.

One approaches This is All Yours aware of the band’s ‘sophomore problem’, the weighing expectation to live up to the ‘scatterbrain’ experimentation that earned them the ‘new Radiohead’ tag. However, despite still being a band making carefully crafted alt-pop, in this album they seem to be serving a less exciting version of their debut’s sounds, without expanding. Apart from the odd Miley Cyrus vocal sample, there is nothing that grabs attention as much as ‘Breezeblocks’ or ‘Fitzpleasure’.

Sure, their approach works perfectly on the two songs that solidify the record, ‘Hunger of the Pine’ and ‘Every Other Freckle’. Elsewhere, they do best when they let go of their usual tricks: baptized by the band as their most ‘non-Alt-J’ song for being (irresistibly) straightforward, ‘Left Hand Free’ may serve as an insight into how the band would rather not be identified.

With this in mind, the show delivered more than I expected. The band delivered a dynamic set to a reverent crowd. Although mainly comprised of their Wave hits, the show gave life to cuts from the album that may not initially stand out, such ‘Nara’, which was a highlight.

Overall, This is All Yours is a solid listen. However, its interesting brainstorms of arrangements might work less often and they might be costing the record its coherence. While not adding to the Alt-J momentum, it is likely to please the trio’s fan-base but without pointing to any new directions.