People, it is 2013. We are officially living IN THE FUTURE. Even if some industries haven’t been pulling their weight on getting us up to sci-­fi standards of modernity (hoverboots manufacturers, I’m looking squarely at you), Everything Everything’s latest offering Arc provides a suitably modern soundtrack to the year ahead.

Sophomore albums are always tricky, but Arc takes the best of the busy, creative foundation laid by Man Alive and runs with it. The album bounds from one hectic track to the next, each song like a maze in which every turn takes you somewhere unexpected. As a whole, it feels fresh and relevant to where the music scene is now.

What so easily could have turned into boring bland Indie-boy pop instead combines great electronica with an R’n’B sensibility (think, perhaps, Postal Service with a touch of the Weeknd). It may even deserve that most over-used of monikers: ladies and gents, I think it might even be “eclectic”.

Opening number ‘Cough Cough’ is something that you could easily imagine going ballistic to at a gig. It’s a strong beginning to a strong album and sets the tone for what follows by combining great hooks with witty, quickdraw lyrics and is catchy as a cold. It’s busy and bold, with a great chorus.

It’s followed by the second single off the album, ‘Kemosabe’, which looks set to be one of those words that everyone will sing loudly without actually knowing what it means. I refer in particular to the young Jilly’s adventures with Nelly Furtado’s 2006 song “Promiscuous”. It’s definitely not one of the more exciting songs from the album, but it’s decent pop music nonetheless.

‘Torso of the Week’ could have been the best track on the album but its strong Pet Shop Boys-esque beat and eerie falsetto vocals are let down by a lazy chorus. The first place is instead taken by ‘Duet’, which glides on the back of swooping violins before ­finishing with a full, noisy, excellent crescendo. It has all the best features of the album: great lyrics and busy orchestration but it deploys them with a restraint that other tracks lack.

The album is full of great ideas, but they’ve been thrown together in a kind of jambalaya. ‘Undrowned’ is a creepy, watery ode to modern life, wavering on the edge of delicious hysteria as it builds to a melodramatic and unsatisfyingly abrupt end. ‘Armourland’ is a jutting, ‘80’s cry of lust, but it somehow works quite well, although the transitions between the suave choruses and erratic verses are far from smooth. 

Arc is a good album but its “chuck everything in” feel means that some tracks lack a certain restraint that could have led to something a bit more polished.