Initially grouped with the explosion of lo-fi bands associated with the Captured Tracks scene in Brooklyn, the London quartet, Veronica Falls, formed in 2009 and comprising of guitar and vocalist Roxanne Clifford, drummer Patrick Doyle, guitarist James Hoare and bassist Marion Herbain quietly released a series of limited edition, quickly sold out singles which gradually accrued them underground buzz and a cache of hopelessly devoted fans. Then they signed to Bella Union – one of the UK’s leading lights when it comes to independent labels – and released a blinder of a self-titled debut LP in 2011, one which trumped all expectations and rocketed the band to the covers of The Fly and Loud and Quiet and sold out gigs at the Scala. Casual listeners who just assumed that they just made pretty, pristine pop songs were forced to reevaluate their preconceptions when they examined the lyrics more closely – lurking beneath the glacial surfaces were lyrics about suicide and spectral love. “We love bands like Beat Happening, Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500 and Felt, but we also love over-emotionalism”, says Doyle. “We all originally bonded over the sinister sides to love songs from the 50’s and 60’s”. Welcome to the slanted and enchanted world of Veronica Falls, where serendipity, subversion, providence, and a shared love for Roky Erickson’s worldview all have a crucial part to play. With their debut album, released in 2011, Veronica Falls crafted a brilliantly concise, superbly concentrated hit of spiky, marvellously contagious indie pop with a twist – these are songs which will lodge themselves in your head as well as your heart, with style and attitude to burn. Not that the band were content to rest on their laurels, they set about penning songs for their second album immediately. After touring the world for most of 2012, the band returned to the airwaves in the November with a new single “Teenage”. They followed it up in early 2013 with the release of the Rory Attwell (Male Bonding, the Vaccines) co-produced album Waiting for Something to Happen. The record sees the band emerge as one of the most potent and affecting, fully-formed indie guitar pop acts we have around. Beautifully mature and poignant, this marvellously assured second record sees the band throw off the casually morbid references to elegantly distill the essence of an aimless twentysomething existence – the collective anxieties, tension and confusion of moving from adolescence into fully fledged adulthood – into a set of immaculately conceived, perfectly wrought pop songs. “I’d say the word “wistful” really describes the mood of the album”, Clifford muses. “We chose the album title because to me it captures what people our age are all going through”. Musically too, this album sees the band evolve into a more poised and confident pop entity, the melodies bolder and songs more muscular. These are tracks which spin gorgeous, sun-kissed melodies across their tales of growing pains and romantic dysfunction. So there are deliciously askew pop belters in the form of “Buried Alive” and “Everybody’s Changing”, but there are also achingly tender moments present too, from the touching love song “Broken Toy” (“I am broken too, a broken toy like you”), to the gentle reverie “Daniel”, which strips the track to its barest essentials – shimmering guitar lines and perfectly harmonised vocals sighing, “nobody needs to know what we know, nobody needs to go where we go” to perfectly heart rending effect. You may have had them tagged as goth-tinged pop fantasists, but with “Waiting For Something to Happen”, Veronica Falls easily shrug off any notions of a difficult second album to create something that is easily more polished, more affecting, and more enduring than their peers would dream of making, and stake their claim as one of the most gloriously unpredictable and invaluable bands the UK has right now. Clutch them close to your heart.