"Five Times Cursed" is the sound of The House of Love on Lucozade. Mark Bradford's guitar echoes and chimes a la Terry Bickers. Meanwhile singer Nev emotes in a worldly-wise yet wide-eyed manner. This song heralds a slight toughening of the band's sound, but don't worry, they haven't exactly turned into Metallica. A The The-esque bass line ushers in "Days To Come". As the chorus kicks in you realise that this song will hang around your head for days to come. The guitar arpeggios have the dexterity of Johnny Marr and serve the song, rather than fuel the player's ego. These two opening songs have a mean and moody atmosphere, which is dispelled by the slightly more jaunty title track. The summery strumming doesn't mean the band have gone lightweight. Mark and Nev are quality songwriters who know how to build a piece of music that carries the listeners along for the ride.

"This Is A Wave" sounds like the band's last album "Daylight In The Darkroom". It blends strummed acoustic guitar, with a note-bending solo in the style of Chris Isaak. Nev promises: 'I will swear/To be the devil's foe.' Meanwhile "Roulette Sun" has a woozy, languid feeling, reminiscent of the moodier moments of Dog Man Star. The echo-laden slide guitar is particularly effective. "Little Joy" passes pleasantly, but unmemorably. "Great Strange Dream" has fantastic guitars, making me wonder whatever happened to Marion, whose debut album was cut from similar cloth. "Sound Of The End" has the faded glamour of early Suede. "Begging Like A Dog" is the sound of Tindersticks, if they had just come from a children's birthday party rather than a funereal.

It's difficult to describe quite how they do it, but sometimes Ray just makes a song that connects with something primeval in my soul. On the last album it was "Godspeed To You The Avalanche". This time around it's the final song "Cut Out". Maybe it's the dynamics, the way the song ebbs and flows. Maybe it's the lyrical motif of 'a death in fiction' that reprises the title track. It could the way the guitar lines flow, mercurial in the heat. The song is epic, without being bloated. When Ray headline the Royal Albert Hall they should climax with this song, preferably backed by a full orchestra.

Ray are one of those bands which tempt me to proselytize. They aren't radically refining the Indie genre in which they belong, but the quality of songwriting and the finesse of their playing marks them out as timeless. Ray deserve to be in the charts, they deserve to be loved by millions, but life is so rarely fair...