That Kodaline are ready to release their second album has still to sink in with the men who made it. The Dublin quartet didn’t plan to follow up last year’s 350,000-selling In A Perfect World so promptly. In fact, they didn’t plan at all. Sparked by an experiment that inspired them to shake up their sound, the band started recording and couldn’t stop. Just eight weeks later, Coming Up For Air was complete. Ambition abounds on Coming Up For Air. You can hear it in the range and emotion in Steve’s spellbinding vocals; in songs that hide hooks in unexpected places; in those hard-to-put-your-finger-on sounds that sometimes skulk in the background, sometimes take centre stage. Coming Up For Air may be a sonic step on from the band’s hugely successful single All I Want, but at its core remains Kodaline’s ability to connect instantly with an audience, to share the emotions in their songs and to pull the listener in to their world. It’s a smart, sharp, sophisticated album, by a band only just discovering what they’re capable of.