In recent years, received rock wisdom has dictated that when establishing a new band, the EP is king. OK, not just the EP, but a steady stream of download-only singles, limited vinyl and, if feeling particularly frisky, a mini-album is accepted as the ideal way to whip a growing fanbase into a rabid frenzy just in time for the debut album.

The Joy Formidable got that memo and followed it to the letter and, so it is, that ‘The Big Roar’ is as widely anticipated a debut as British rock has known for quite some time. The only downside, of course, is that those of us who cottoned on to the band rather sooner are faced with the prospect of re-recorded versions of songs with which we are already familiar. On the whole though, it’s good news. Only four tracks survive from their ‘A Balloon Called Moaning’ mini-album, and who would begrudge them an opportunity to share songs as strong as ‘Austere’, ‘Cradle’, ‘Whirring’, and ‘The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade’ with a wider audience. These are not pale cousins to rawer, more vital previous incarnations either. This is the very antithesis of precious songwriting – each track has been pulled apart and plumped with an extra bombast, an extra swagger. One time single ‘Whirring’ is now a 6-minute double bass drum pedalled behemoth that builds and builds to a quite astonishing climax.

And perhaps that is what is most remarkable about this album. It sounds MASSIVE. HUGE. It is the sound of a band that should already be regularly playing the sort of stadium-sized shows they had their first taste of last year when supporting Paul McCartney and Manic Street Preachers at the Millennium Stadium. Even more astonishing though is how genuinely brave an album it is – both for the band and their (lest we forget) major label. Far from coaching The Joy Formidable’s tendency towards progressive, epic soundscapes out of them in favour of 3-minute pop nuggets, Atlantic seem to have actively encouraged the band to be as expansive as they want to be.

Opening track ‘The Everchanging Spectrum Of A Lie’ clocks in at above 7 minutes, but never feels meandering, as it is instantly followed with the confident, focused rock of ‘The Magnifying Glass’. Very few bands have ever managed to sound quite so vast and so hooky at the same time. Individual egos have been firmly parked at the studio door, with Ritzy Bryan and Rhydian Dafydd instinctively and unselfishly dovetailing on vocals. They know exactly when to switch between a male or female lead vocal, and combine on layer upon layer of lush harmonies to give this album the broadest of soundscapes.  Matt Thomas’ drumming is also worthy of note. It is rare to use double bass drum in this sort of music, but he uses it economically and innovatively to move the band into very interesting territory. He plays for the song – not himself – and, ironically, this restraint only serves to underline quite what a fantastic drummer Thomas is.

‘The Big Roar’ is an apt name for what is a very Welsh album. Not in the lazy Manics and Catatonia comparisons which will inevitably be made, but in the fact that, on it, the band appear to have perfectly recreated the feeling of standing on a mountain, a green and rolling land stretching out ahead, and bellowing into a force ten gale.

It is on such a precipice The Joy Formidable now stand, poised. Watch them roar.

www.thejoyformidable.com