Having made a name for themselves with their debut album Capture / Release and their particular dapper clothing, English quartet The Rakes announce their sophomore set Ten New Messages with The World Was a Mess, But His Hair Was Perfect.

On initial glance, it may appear that they’re appealing to stereotypes, but the caustic lyrics match those of the likes of 22 Grand Job and Work Work Work (Pub Club Sleep) with cheeky wit and sharp guitars. The song itself began life as a fifteen minute number, soundtracking the Dior Homme fashion show, but is now significantly shortened as the opening number for Ten New Messages.

Jamie Hornsmith, bassist for the group, is enjoying the calm before the storm as the Rakes take their Ten New Messages to the world. “While we were making it,” he says of the album, “we didn’t do anything – a Christmas party, a small gig in Manchester, and one in Paris I think. But apart from that we were concentrating on making it; our last tour was just under a year ago. We’re coming back all fresh, with loads of fresh tunes, and excited for it.”

Quite a bit different to the blood rush of Capture / Release, Ten New Messages offers up more contemplation, with slower tempos and a more contemplative approach. ”We wanted to evolve,” he shrugs. ”A lot of bands go away and say ‘we’re going to come back with a new direction’ and they come back and they’ve all grown a beard or something, but still sound the same. We really wanted to make this conscious decision.  Listening back to the first album we thought it was a really good album for what it was at the time, but it’s an album that we made to get people’s attention while we were supporting other bands – it’s a real live album, and this one we wanted to make more for the stereo. It’s more considered, and a nicer sounding record.”

He says that the newer material is a nice breather after the more punkish feel of the older material, yet the band maintain their greater worldview, particularly in the politically conscious lyrics of frontman Alan Donohoe on numbers like Suspicious Eyes. ”It’s a comment on life as we know it,” Hornsmith says of the album. ”We thought it would be strange not to right about these things because they’re such a large part of our life, and everyone’s life, so we thought it was important to put these things in. We’re not preaching to anyone but instead it’s more set out like a play, staging a situation.”

As such, the songs themselves were created very deliberately, with every moment in both sound and lyric thought out and considered. ”We wanted to evolve,” he says. ”We needed to go somewhere in our career of being in a band, and if you want to have a few records out you want to show that you’re going somewhere – if you come back with the same record twice then people will just be bored of it, and it’s nice to come back and surprise people.”

In crafting Ten New Messages, The Rakes worked with two producers, who each brought their own unique style to things – Jim Abiss and Brendan Lynch. ”It’s quite a strange way of working,” he admits, and meant that the band had to work hard at getting a cohesive sound throughout the entirety of the record. ”Both producers came to us and asked us to work with them, which we were flattered by. Jim Abiss has done a lot of stuff with Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian and I think he’s good at getting a certain sort of pop sound out of a rock band, so we took the songs that we thought would suit his production more, and after we recorded that we gave it to Brendan, who’s done stuff with Primal Scream who we’re all big fans of, and used that as a template. We knew that what we did with him we didn’t want to be singles, and we could experiment a bit more. They’re both very different to work with, but equally talented.”

The Rakes’ Ten New Messages is out now.