Proper Ornaments is the project of James Hoare (Ultimate Painting, Veronica Falls) and Max Oscarnold (Toy, Pink Flames). Their debut LP "Wooden Head" came out in July 2014. The album crackled with hints of something majestic behind what could at first be heard, a secret sotto voce world inside. It was as quietly sly and mercurial as it was driving and accessible, and its masterly crafted simplicity drew extensive critical praise. James and Max started out writing the follow-up in January 2015. On "Foxhole" they've sliced away a whole stratum of their sound, removing some distortion and lowering the frequency of plectrum strokes to allow more nuanced, piano-led ideas to emerge. It's a sombre but also more direct and open effort, from its first number "Back Pages" ("See me on the back page/of last year's modern age") onwards. If "Always There" was the most melodically fluid but dimly lit point of the first record, there are another half album of songs here at least that are as strikingly gorgeous and unsettling. "Memories," "Just a Dream," "Frozen Stare" and "When We Were Young" are in this mould, as is the icy, slightly devastated goodbye that closes the record "The Devils," filled out with piano reminiscent of Big Star's "Third" or Lou Reed's "Berlin" and cracked double bass. They create pop moments of a haunted love song quality along the lines of Del Shannon, Lesley Gore or Roy Orbison. Proper Ornaments hold the attraction of seeming to not try very hard at all and achieve something outstanding nonetheless. Quite apart from our attachment to laziness and chance which make this seductive, textures of dappled drums, softened-out guitars and vocal harmonies that slide along as effortlessly as this, any evidence of conscious construction spirited away, are in themselves totally ecstatic to listen to.