Much has been made of The Polyphonic Spree's cultish Davidian undertones - hell, they're from Texas and there's twenty-four of them, what did you expect? The unabashed hippy vibe of their debut, The Beginning Stages Of..., did little to dispel these, splitting listeners into two camps: those that couldn't stop grinning, having been exposed to some life-affirming and outlook-changing experience, while others were convinced it was both cynical and somewhat sinister.

The band's sophomore effort, Together We're Heavy, in fact their first album proper (The Beginning Stages Of... was a quickly recorded demo of sorts) also sees them without a major label home in the UK, having been dropped by 679, while being bankrolled in the US by Disney. The happy-clappy vibe continues, a rumoured darker side due to be revealed on their unrecorded third album, but the sound is more honed and no longer relies on the "if in doubt, everybody sing" maxim. The album plays as a suite, rather than individual songs, with tracks bleeding into each other and tropes re-emerging from previous songs and, indeed, the previous album.

Opener "We Sound Amazed" is typical, building from a quiet drone to a driving crescendo, before slowing to a lilting ballad - and that's just the intro. All of which might sound schizoid or, at least, tiring but the truth is far from it, that the road has unexpected twists keeps Together We're Heavy interesting. The predictable verse-chorus-verse pattern beloved of more conventional acts is clearly not for the Spree; "Everything Starts At The Seam", for example, is sub-two minutes and mostly introductory but still manages to pack in thirty seconds of soaring La-La drenched pop. While some tracks will be familiar to the Spree faithful, with some, like the majestic "2000 Places At Once", a live staple since their first UK tour, each sounds fresh and vital.

While it may be that the press at large has tired of the novelty aspect of The Polyphonic Spree, Together We're Heavy is an accomplished and, perhaps, more subtle album than their debut. It is, however, no less uplifting.