If not likely to generate as much interest as the Beach Boys’ Smileor Neil Young’s Homegrown, Honey + Salt, the album Splashh recorded then aborted last year, does at least furnish Waiting a Lifetime with an odd backstory. The Anglo-Australian quartet had been talking of a radical shift away from the commercial garage rock of their debut to more experimental, synth-based electronica. But very little evidence of that genre detour survives – only Look Down to Turn Away’s slowly building intro hints at what might have been. The rest of their second album is more remarkable for its indie conservatism. But at least there is a handful of genuinely winning tunes – See Through, in particular, is sunny indie that recalls Pavement at their least obtuse – amid the more formulaic fare.
