Swiftly following last year’s album ‘Sea’, Last Days moves to the country, as engendered in the beautiful photography on the digipak artwork for These Places Are Now Ruins.

Composer Graham Richardson uses a mixture of field recordings, live instruments and electronic programming to document his past memories, no better exemplified than on the early track Reasons To Go, which deftly drifts from sampled washing costal tides to the sirens and murmur of urban life, accompanied by the strains of acoustic guitar.

Parts of These Places Are Now Ruins are, however, more abstract and restless, witness the grittily dark Points Bridge and Two Halves Of A Line, which use gristly scenic backdrops, in the latter case trembling with discordant guitars to recall fearful mental scenarios with little luminosity.

The remaining tracks drift dreamily, with an almost ghostly sense of remorse – touches of piano often draw the music back in from the cold to offer hope, but overall one senses unresolved issues tugging at the compass of Richardson’s cinematic storytelling.

Whilst the ambient backdrops are more diverse and imposing than Richardson’s debut, that is offset by the music’s overriding sense of despondency. Richardson’s compositions are often bewildering, uncommunicative and cumbersome – and if that’s how he really feels about life then These Places Are Now Ruins is a triumph of expression. If that’s how you feel about life you might find common ground, otherwise it’s all a bit overbearing.