Although Gates and Plouf still play almost everything on their second outing, they make things more interesting by fooling around with a greater variety of instruments (adding more keyboards particularly) and getting outside guest vocalists to harmonize on a few songs. The songwriting (now handled by Gates exclusively) gets more penetrating as well, and the production is more imaginative (but does not approach slickness). At their most morose they recall “slowcore” groups like Low and Spain, but the Spinanes have more diversity than those acts and they show that on Strand.