Maccabees heading to Birmingham HMV Institute

The Maccabees look to be stepping up a league. Their frontman Orlando Weeks talks about their third album.

It's a bit early to start crowing about the best album of 2012. But less than two weeks into the new year, The Maccabees have unveiled an album that will almost certainly dominate end-of-year polls in 11 months' time.

For frontman Orlando Weeks, starting off the New Year with such gusto is perfect and fits in with the way the quintet have operated since day one.

"We always joke that we start with a break," he says of the creative process that has produced their third album, Given To The Wild.

"Each rehearsal, we turn up, then have a cup of tea and a fag and a chat, and it's an-hour-and-a-half before we do anything. Releasing the album just after the Christmas break is the same. We've shut down for a few weeks, now we're about to get busier than ever."

It's almost five years since the London five-piece released their debut album Colour It In – a spiky, angular set of songs, heavily influenced by the likes of XTC, Magazine and early Blur.

It was charming in its naivety and perfectly enjoyable, but while many bands sound at their most exciting on their debut, The Maccabees seemed as if they were being held back. The follow-up Wall Of Arms arrived two years later and delivered on so much of that early promise. It was produced by Markus Dravs, who had previously worked with Bjork, Coldplay and Arcade Fire, and was a real step up.

"With the new one, it definitely feels like we've achieved some of the things Wall Of Arms was pointing at. It's to do with being more articulate," says Weeks.

"And we're so much more confident now, we can get closer to the thing that we envisage.

"When we started, we'd say things like 'We want it to sound watery, but with a bit more punch to it', to a producer. Now, instead of saying that, we can ask for certain reverbs or delays, or accurately describe a mood."

Given To The Wild was partly recorded in the band's own studio, and partly at Rockfield, in Monmouth, the legendary venue where the likes of Oasis, Manic Street Preachers, The Stone Roses and Paul Weller made some of the Nineties' best albums, and also where Queen recorded Bohemian Rhapsody.

"It's not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be," says Weeks.

"But it's a very special place, incredible. The reverb chambers are amazing, some of the gear there was essential to this record. We didn't want to go to a new sterile studio, and Rockfield isn't like that at all. It's a residential place, so naturally very homely and welcoming."

Weeks particularly enjoys the early stage of writing, with the band feeling their way around new ideas, changing things around and trying different methods.

So the new album took its time, with some recordings dating back two years. And Weeks admits that for a long time it was a work in progress. "We had this day in the studio when we were six demos in to the record and people from the label came to see us who have stuck by us and seen us through from the beginning. Even they were scratching their heads and saying 'Is this a concept record?'

"We had to say they'd got the wrong end of the stick, but did agree the album had lost its way in stages, because we'd all been off on our own recording these quite worked-up demos and adding bits here and there separately.

"We all knew how we wanted the album to sound, but it meant after that realisation that the real job of making the record was piecing all these things together, and stealing bits from the demos that we couldn't better.

"The trick is obviously not making it sound patchwork, even though it is."

* The Maccabees released their third album Given To The Wild on Monday. They will play Birmingham's HMV Institute on Friday, January 27, 2012.