Our favourite purveyors of pop-folk from Latvia, Carnival Youth, have returned with the indie-anthem-in-waiting ‘Words Like Birds’. Sure to whet anticipation for debut album ‘No Clouds Allowed’, it sees the teenage four-piece dip into a more polished sound than perhaps we’ve seen before – but that’s not a bad thing, especially as they’re keen to keep their quirky edge.

The words ‘So many things said to be true all the time’ come along early in the song’s brisk two-and-a-half-minute running time and it becomes apparent there’s been some heartache behind the buoyancy. With a hint of early Maximo Park and an idiosyncratic touch of Local Natives or British Sea Power in the magnetic atmosphere and instrumentation, the title of the song – ‘Words like birds’ – is repeated time and time again – with more passion every time so it eventually sounds like a chant…

A song that also has some brilliant ornithological artwork, it once again marks out Carnival Youth as a ridiculously talented band that could soar as high as the magnificent animals they’re singing so fervently about…