STRANGE as it may seem, it doesn’t necessarily pay to be too clever when it comes to music. Not if you want commercial success to go with the critical applause, anyway.

Whether David and Peter Brewis, the brothers who make up Field Music, have ever been too bothered about sales is unlikely; their music, for all its craft and intrigue, has always been of the arms-length variety, too complex to lure popular appeal.

But while Commontime won’t change that on its own, it’s as warm, straightforward, refreshing and accessible an album as they’ve produced during their 11-year history.

For all the hints of Talking Heads, XTC, and Peter Gabriel, and the presence of the clipped, austere songwriting touch that Field Music have always applied, these are excellent pop songs (The Noisy Days Are Over, Disappointed, But Not For You, Don’t You Want To Know What’s Wrong?) that deal with the onset of middle age in a concentrating-on-the-present rather than a yearning-for-the-past way.

Too long by at least two tracks, Commontime could have used some quality control. But at least Field Music, probably destined to forever be contenders for the Best Band You’ve Never Heard Of title, have proved once again that they’re in control of plenty of quality.

Field Music play The Duchess, York, on February 28