‘Songs, stories, magical words.’ So runs the sample woven through ‘Stories’, at the midpoint of Tunng’s much-anticipated follow up to 2003’s Mother’s Daughter. It’s a well-chosen clip by way of describing what Tunng offer to a new folk scene that is becoming increasingly crowded. For those who are well-versed in Tunng’s breed of dark, glitchy folk, this album will come as no surprise. It’s roughly the same again, with catchy guitar riffs, the distinctive vocals of Sam Genders and Mike Lindsay, clicky post-electronica beats and a liberal sprinkling of obscure film samples.

Great use is made once again of vocal production; the hard-panned, multitracked vocals create a real sense that the titular inner chorus is present in the fabric of the record, that the music is storyteller and the listener, audience. Harmony is used sparingly but effectively, with echoes of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Wednesday Morning 3AM’ ­ ‘Jenny Again’ could quite easily have been an S&G offcut from that period. Contrapuntal lines wrap around one another, and, like the first outing, lyrical themes are evocative and full of imagery:

‘Red heel and bright blue eyes walking a steady line
Firebombs and mortar shells, deep kisses through the night
Dancing on thin ice, chained up at the ankles
I look in your red eyes and cover my green skin
Twist like an adder, fall like a slice of snow
Dart between rocks and I know what the darkness knows
Annie don’t cry it’s a delicate thing that we made’

And this is the link, if anything, to the folk roots of the band, because Comments of the Inner Chorus, like Mother’s Daughter, is a collection of fables. Even when the songs are wrapped in darkness, like the track ‘Red and Green’ quoted above, or wilfully abstract, there’s the sense that the inner chorus of the album’s title is telling you timeless tales of the natural world, of myth and of humanity’s presence on the earth.

If there’s criticism to be made here it’s that it’s maybe not immediately as tuneful as the first album, and definitely over far too soon at 42 minutes. The album is lacking a foot-tapper like ‘Tales from the black’, ‘Song of the Sea’ or ‘Fair Doreen’. It sometimes feels like a collection of offcuts or b-sides, hastily cobbled together to make the most of the wave of press the band have been enjoying. But then you find yourself reaching the end of the instrumental closer, ‘Engine Room’, and hitting play again and it’s like you’ve put a brand-new album on. There is depth here, beyond the melodies and nu-folk stylings, which places Tunng in a league above their peers. Stripped of the trappings of the cardigan crowd, this would make a fine electronica album, or a great bit of summer acoustica, or a sublime alternative soundtrack to a grainy 70s movie - Peeping Tom, or Straw Dogs perhaps.

However you experience Comments of the Inner Chorus, you’re unlikely to find an album this year that rewards patience and careful listening as much as this does.

Andy Dobson (Digitonal)

Tunng play live on the Village Green stage at The Big Chill festival 2006.

Tags: again, album, folk, green, tunng
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