Spies: Constancy review – A new and vivid phase for the Dublin band

Dublin band Spies have certainly lived up to their name by keeping so low a profile over the past eight years you’d have to wonder whether they might be a Keyser Soze-type music act that exists only in the minds of the perenially confused.

That they've been around since 2010, the year they released their debut EP, Liars Call me King, points to a "life getting in the way" scenario that can often hobble even the most committed of groups. And so after some years of a hiatus (full-time jobs, family matters, the usual stuff) a debut album finally emerges.

What jumps out from the very start are the songs – they’re grounded in tradition, and you might even describe them as old-fashioned, but they are formed in such a way that you’d be foolish to withstand their collective strength. Perhaps the contraction of time to needlessly mull over things has made the indie electro-pop music sharper, firmer?

Whatever the reasons, songs such as Ho Chi Minh, Young Dad, Watchman, Red Oak, and the remarkable closing track, Love is a Dream, usher in a new and vivid phase for a band that have finally, thankfully, come in from the cold.