"They sound a bit like Portishead", was how Brisbane band Fagan was first described to me. That's a boast that I've heard a great many times over the years, but I've always been disappointed in the end, because nobody seems to be able to duplicate their ethereal, ghostly sound. Most bands seem simply content to mimic Beth Gibbons as closely as possible, while not paying any attention to the incredibly rich instrumentation that I think was the key to their sound. Still, with no new Portishead albums in sight, I'm forced to look for replacements to their sound, and seemingly, to be endlessly disappointed that nobody else can capture the magic.

The bad news is that Fagan are no match at all for Portishead. The good news is that despite not reaching that very high bar, they still have quite a few merits of their own. Not only do they have echoes of Portishead mixed up in their sound, there are also elements of Björk in here as well, creating a dark, moody atmosphere that borrows elements from Icelandic post-rock, as well as from electronica and trip-hop.

The first song on the album, Centred starts off with a plaintive female voice asking "Is there anything out there?". Some light percussion starts to underscore this, before a chiming, piano-like sound, and bent guitar notes begin counting off every bar of the music. Partially submerged through the mix, the female vocals continue, occasionally peeking through the gorgeous layers of sound over the top of it. The single Dante, which comes after it, is even better though, with its superb mixing of vocals from guest vocalists Deb Suckling and Anthony Forrest, slightly more frantic beat, and some sparse piano work. It's the sort of messy arrangement that has the potential to fall apart very easily, but it's all kept together very well, and it never sounds as muddled as a lesser band would make it.

The brains behind this outfit, Dominic Vincent and Damien Sutton, obviously have an eye for creating a great album though, as opposed to a few singles that they can use as launchpads for their career. The Beautiful Mundane, which comes about halfway through the album, is a case in point. It has enough hooks to be legitimately classified as a pop song, but between the mixture of subdued male vocals and soaring female vocals, the layered string section, and the subtle electronic flourishes, it proves to be far more than just a simple pop song. I would even go so far as to say that it's one of my favourite songs to be released this year. Again, it's a very complex song, but Fagan are talented enough to keep everything on track, and stop it from becoming chaotic.

About the only criticism I can come up with for this record is that it's still firmly a genre record - if you have a hatred of trip-hop, electronica, or lush, layered sound, then this record isn't quite good enough to change your mind. However, that would be a real shame, because this is a record that is definitely worth listening to. From every track being like a carefully crafted mini-symphony, to the bizarre artwork which captures the sound of the album in a visual medium almost perfectly, to the multitude of tasteful guest appearances from all over the Brisbane indie scene and beyond, this album is clearly the work of two guys with a bright future. They might not be Portishead, but they're just as good, in a different way.