The long-awaited sophomore album from the 6-piece is a balanced and reflective triumph, breezing through a tv-static dreamscape of melodically charged indie shoegaze warmth.

The Leeds music scene has been quietly bubbling away. Despite the post-pandemic music media spotlight centring on other, perhaps more exponentially flourishing pockets of the UK, the Northern city’s steadily fertile creative ground is evidenced in the emergence and success of bands such as English Teacher and Yard Act in recent years. Van Houten are next in line, a long-standing local group who have been diligently honing their craft in the seven years since their formation. Serving up their latest long-player, ‘The Tallest Room’ via Clue Records (a label currently partnered with EMI North), the 6-piece swirl garage fuzz into a broth of blissed-out dreamy shoegaze on their most sophisticated release to date.

Like buttery rays of warmth thawing vast, frost glistened plains, ‘The Tallest Room’ carries that familiar hazy hope felt at the precipice of spring, still cowed by the harshness of a long winter. Thematically anchored by a newfound growth and maturity now felt by the band, much of it centres on personal reflections gathered along the way. Lead vocalist and guitarist Louis Sadler explains, “Over the past couple of years while we’ve been writing I’ve gone through some massive changes that have really sculpted my outlook and it’s naturally bled into our music… It’s about gaining perspective, moving forwards and while it acknowledges darker experiences & feelings, it’s ultimately about moving on.”

This growth extends beyond just its lyrical themes too; a remarkable leap forwards from their 2019 self-titled debut album, here Van Houten’s compositional roots strengthen and furrow far deeper than ever before. Rutting straight through the soil of their previous Mac Demarco-style jangle, they venture bravely into a rich, new earthy bed of immersive, ambling guitar-gilded fuzz oozing all the charm you might unleash splicing early Ulrika Spacek with bdrmm. The increased emphasis placed on the three guitarists on ‘The Tallest Room’ is perhaps one of the most striking differences from their earlier output. At points where heavy use of reverb and distortion on core elements like the vocals could easily render their sound a thick sonic gloop, creative and ornate interplay and driving arpeggios between the three guitarists extricate it from its woolly caverns and vitalise it with a flurrying lushness.

Much of this record’s strength lies in its careful balancing of light and dark. Utilising the expertise of producer Alex Greaves (who has previously produced the likes of Bloc Party and Working Men’s Club), care has clearly been taken to nurture a flow and pace that is both strikingly organic and without excessive moments of stasis. Laying the listener back on dewy grass and guiding their gaze up above, each track drifts across a dome of afternoon sky and softly transmutes into the next like shapely clouds. Some are light and feathery, like singles ‘Coming Of Age’ and ‘I Only Wanna Be With You’, while others, such as ‘Never Did Come Back’, are much more cumbrous and grey with rain. Crucially, every hue subsumes into the next, each misty edge speckling delicately across in a way that feels contextual and appropriate.

While the sound that they cultivate doesn’t necessarily break any new ground from a more general point of view, Van Houten are a classic case of a band highly attuned to the changing influences of both themselves and their musical peers, willing to grow and adapt together. With foundations firmly rooted in their strong and lasting friendship, ‘The Tallest Room’ is the kind of record that only comes to be at that sweet spot; right at the intersection between years of experience, songwriting skill, and powerful band chemistry. The resulting elixir is a very smooth one indeed.