Everyone loves a nice surprise right? Like when you find twenty quid stuffed in the pocket of your jeans after the weekend. Yeah, result!

Well that’s how today felt when it was discovered that ever charming Welsh psych-folk ensemble Soft Hearted Scientists, only went and released a new album – The Slow Cyclone. Released back in late September, it is their sixth LP to date and is comprised of a staggering 24 tracks, a mix of full songs, instrumentals and tiny interludes, divided into 4 groups of 6 tracks. The first single to be taken from their rather hefty LP is ‘The Ups And The Downs’. It is a typically endearing number with a cosmic mix of jaunty acoustic chiming, stunning harmonies, extremely clever wordplay and unusual lyrics; dealing with Alexander the Great, the horrors of typecasting for Basil Rathbone who played a great Sherlock Holmes (“It made his name, brought global fame, but turned him into stone”), the trauma of domestic conflict, and the consolation of domestic panther purrs. A wonderfully whimsical mix of the tongue-in-cheek with the surreal – just marvelous, simply marvelous.

You can check ‘The Ups And The Downs’ below and buy it here. You sample more from the album here too.