Overall, Eleanor’s vocals give The Fiery Furnaces the feeling of being Pulp’s precocious little sister. There’s literate observation at work here (to the point of the political on We Got The Plague, a Dylan-styled rave-up) in a big way. The concept of faraway places, travel and almost child-like adventure is central to the album. Being attacked by sharks (Asthma Attack), journeys to Cadiz, croquet, trials in the Hague, plantains purchasing… all this and more is mentioned through the disc, evoking thoughts of postcards and travelogues, or dog-eared tomes with strange feathers as bookmarks.

The musical landscape is equally strange, though it all seems to come from pretty standard instruments. Meaty, bouncy bass and garage guitar – though sometimes Mick Ronson-era Bowie leads make an appearance – are slathered everywhere. The toothy tones of a piano are found across the disc too, played with amazing abandon – all bash and missed-key enthusiasm. Inca Rag/Name Game is the most obvious example of this: it sounds almost like something that’d be created during a round of Theatresports, except for the fabulous moment at 1:50 where a meaty, Lennon/McCartney-styled riff comes home to roost.

A good reference point for the band would be The Flaming Lips, particularly on the glorious Up In The North, where a melange of squishy keyboards and what sounds like muffled wah over simple melodies and Beatles bass sits alongside lyrics about learning songs and servant girls in Turku and benches in Anjou. But then that definition’s disproved by the presence of Leaky Tunnel, with its constant, driving drumbeats, Kraftwerk-thick tones and icy paranoiac tales of pick-ups in London played out over acid-rock guitar freakouts. Put your finger on one definition and The Fiery Furnaces have already hopscotched on, poking their tongues out at you.

The single Don’t Dance Her Down is probably indicative of the sort of perverse dorkgroove the band do best. References to gambling in Spain and England are shoehorned into a song that contains one of the funkiest basslines on the album, with requisite scratchy guitar. There’s nothing particularly earthshattering about the lyrics, but then it does turn into what sounds like incidental music from Star Trek at the tune’s halfway point for a while, before returning to the groove – so that’s forgivable. It’s suspiciously Britpop, but like the rest of the album, it’s delightfully free of cynicism.

Gallowsbird’s Bark is, at heart, an odd but honest record. It’s dense, and too fucked-up in a krautrock-meets-hoedown way to be truly considered a rock with artistic pretensions, like Xiu Xiu, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs or The Strokes, say. If anything, this harks back to the earliest days of Elton John: back when he was purely a hell-for-leather barrelhouse pianist and not an Epic Songwriter For Kids’ Flicks. There’s a similar feeling of rooting through a range of influences to produce something that’s not particularly easy to place within any genre. Enthusiastic, crazy-eyed and sporting sodden sweatbands: that’s pretty much where this band camps out, borrowing from assorted styles and clumping them together like musical Play-Doh to create something that’s endearing yet tattered. Gallowsbird’s Bark is that old-season coat that’s missing most of its buttons but somehow still manages to look good when you whack it on.

To be honest, this isn’t an album that you’ll ever truly understand. It’s too deeply-rooted in sibling dialectics to make actual sense to anyone outside the Friedberger family tree. But that’s what makes listening to it fun – the idea of decipherment. Maps, animals and flowers adorn the cover; the sense of whimsy and cultural pickpocketing make spinning the disc a sort of musical version of Guess Who? – and one that deepens on each successive listen. This is the sound of a pair of space cadets riffling through the ephemera of their lives, as scored by [honky-tonk piano great] Winifred Atwell. The Fiery Furnaces are like that cousin that always had a bit too much red cordial during family get-togethers and insisted on singing chart-toppers to uncles too polite or drunk to protest – so enthusiastic that listeners couldn’t help but pay attention, no matter what.

And if there’s anything that’ll give po-faced glum-rock a kick in the arse, it’s that. Disposable, fabulous pop goodness that’s unafraid to be weird. It’s about time: cheer the hell up and have some cordial with Eleanor and Matt.