There’s a lot to admire about neo-Eighties quintet Wild Swim’s latest single, as much for its architecture as its melodies. The spacious, almost stationary introduction could give the opening of Wagner’s ‘Ring of the Nibelung’ a run for its money: it flows as leisurely as the upper Rhine on a windless August night. Richard Sansom’s vocals are not to my taste: too knowingly theatrical, they nevertheless create a cloudy, dreamy ambience that sticks in the head, and there’s none of the violent gurning that is the case with near-namesake Wild Beasts’ Hayden Thorpe, who Sansom occasionally seems to be channeling. The track builds organically for about four fifths of its length, with martial drums and the odd Rhodes piano flourish adding to the atmosphere and the vocal melody, part love song, part mantra is to die for. The coda seems to divide people: some reviewers love the release of energy as the band dive into a funky guitar-driven groove, as if Spandau Ballet were covering the Chili Peppers, but I feel it’s a lurch into a different song and each time I play it (which is often) I pray for the return of the earlier material.

B-side ‘Bright Eyes’ is less involving and its ending suffers from an objectively rubbish series of glitches and goof-offs, as if a nine-month old had been given the keys to the console (rather than the producer of Suede). But before that unforgivable aberration there is some excellent singing, especially on what passes for the chorus (Wild Swim’s songs tend to be continuous, developing structures without such hackneyed devices as verses, choruses and middle eights) and the playing, invoking the clinical precision of bands like Tears For Fears, though with more emphasis on the guitars, is classy and understated. If the idiom is on the soulless side (1980s: Have I told you lately that I hate you?), the words provide the humanity: “mixing with kings and queens, but I’d much rather be home with Mum and Dad”.

I seem to write this every couple of years about the latest Oxford wonder-group, but this is an example of another band with so much creativity allied with musical chops that they sometimes sound like they are trying to pack too many ideas into one four minute song. But we like it that way in these parts; oh, go on then, one more time: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”