Having taken a break following their critically acclaimed sophomore effort ’Beneath The Burning Shoreline’ to allow principle member Simon Aldred to follow his unexpected synth-pop yearnings under the solo moniker of Out Cold with its first fruits ‘Invasion of Love’ being released last year, Ivor Novello Award-winning indie rockers Cherry Ghost return with ‘Herd Runners’, their first album in four years.

‘Herd Runners’ sees Aldred put his modern toys away and returns once again to the literary, high romance style, a thinking man’s heartbreak which has been winning him plaudits since 2007. However, Cherry Ghost are not simply repeating themselves, there is an obvious progression between ‘Herd Runners’ and its predecessors.

The anger and up-tempo bite of previous material is replaced by more spacious sonic arrangements which see the undercurrents of skiffle and rockabilly reduced with more country-centred sounds to the fore for the most part.

However Aldred’s unexpected musical side-project has seemingly reinvigorated his love for the glamorous swirls of orchestration from the golden age of Hollywood. Indeed many of the songs assembled here would and should grace a movie soundtrack or two, with the sweeping romance of The World Could Turn and the long distance love letter Sacramento being prime candidates. Although Aldred does refrain “I do believe I’ve lost my faith in Hollywood” on My Lover Lies Under so perhaps he’s already refused.

Lyrical changes are afoot too. The social commentary of industrial Britain is greatly reduced and there are no songs about long forgotten moments and movements of history such as on Luddite with Aldred instead focussing on more personal moments, morbid and joyful memories of love accepted and declined, relationships and breakups. Delivered with his crushingly frank and palpable turn of phrase, given further weight by his northern England baritone voice which could make a line about setting off a firework in your arse seem thoroughly engrossing.

When Aldred tells us he’s “drinking for two” it conjures up more emotion in one line than a thousand songs about Gwyneth Paltrow from the weeping pen of Chris Martin ever could on a song that has such a timeless quality that Sinatra would have been rubbing his hands together with glee at the prospect. Hopefully ‘Herd Runners’ will see Aldred get the chart recognition he deserves for his sophisticated timeless compositions as to date Birdy’s cover of People Help The People from Cherry Ghost’s debut ‘Thirst For Romance’ is more successful than anything he’s released himself.