Manchester trio David R Black are back with their third album, 'Secret City', which promises to be a look at "the human condition, tackling life's perpetual themes - love, loss, hope and despair".

The album kicks off with almost Pearl Jam like ambience, and with Joe Gibb (notable for his work with bands like Jane's Addiction and Funeral For A Friend) at the helm as producer it's not surprising that one of the first things that grabs you with this track is the prevalent bass, and this sticks as the forefront instrument throughout the track, which has an air of Stone Roses style psychedelia and "airiness" punctuated with bursts of speed which brings to mind American alt. rockers Live in the seamless transition from a relaxed, ambient vibe to sudden alt. rock outbursts.

'Dark Side Of Her' moves away from the opening track's established ambience for more Classic Rock riffing, though the pace doesn't jump up so much that it completely throws away the relaxed and subdued melodic edge that the album has thus showed, instead opting for something which is fast enough to get the foot tapping away but not so fast that it breaks the hold that opening track 'Chimes' has over you. 'Saturn Returns' once again moves to a more relaxed pace, building up further atmosphere with harmonious sounding backing music with gentle vocals to once again suck you in to listening, and with the punctuating rock that is mixed into the track there isn't the worry that the track will simply fade into background noise if you have it playing whilst on the go.

In what is becoming a recurrent pattern to the album we once again move to more standard rock fare with 'Pictures', and though the track doesn't boast as catchy hooks as other alt. rock bands, its appeal may lie just in that - the track is no frills and no pop-tinkering rock, meaning it can be sung along to at your heart's content without having to worry about being too commercial or soulless, à la Nickleback. The pace picks up with the aptly titled 'Guacamole' showing off a spicier side to the band, speeding things up which will please anybody who is hankering for something on the album which promises to be more energetic and sweat inducing.

The album then drops back to 'Pictures' pace for the two following tracks, 'Crawl' and the eponymous 'Secret City' offering up further servings of relaxed yet rocky musical manoeuvring, building to energetic tracks in the form of 'One Saving Grace', and 'Take It All' which show off a bouncier rhythm than has previously been shown on the album and definitely have potential to be live favourites with their more traditional pacing and simplistic yet sing-along-once-you've-got-the-gist choruses.

For those who have downloaded the album on ITunes or one of the other sites that are hosting the album (Amazon, Napster etc.) in its digital format the album closes with 'Another Day', the dreaded alt. rock ballad, and though it is now a cliché for albums of this genre to feature at least one (and usually more) ballad which panders to the acoustic format, 'Another Day' has enough soul to hold the song up, and wraps the album up nicely giving it full closure, reconciling the harmonious side of the band with their Alt. Rock leanings.

For those who have bought the album and stuck their fingers up to the notion of the death of the CD, we are treated to one last additional track - leading single 'Ezra' which has a tad of more melodic Stiff Little Fingers to it (think 'Harp'), right down to the build up to points where the track bursts out into full rock mode, before dropping back to the melodic for verses.

Overall 'Secret City' boasts an enticing mix of relaxing and energetic tracks, all provided with a sense of melody and flavour which retains the band's influencing groups, such as the Pixies and Husker Du, without falling into the trap of becoming Americanised and therefore losing the edge that comes from their surroundings. As I mentioned previously the album promises to keep you hooked from the go, and the fact it is an album totally comprised of songs which compliment each other perfectly, actually helps to distinguish it from other, lesser albums. Albums, which look to just create a bunch of singles and then cram it with filler material in-between.  What you have here is an enjoyable and distinctly human output from the Manchester trio, which will provide an enjoyable, atmospheric soundtrack to the latter parts of 2011.

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