GREG Gilbert, the other brother in Delays, sums up their career thus: “The first album sounded like the sun, the second album like a club, Everything’s The Rush was a festival, but this new album sounds like roots beneath the city shaking the buildings at night.

“This record is about being lost, and the dream of being found. It’s our most personal record, and, more than anything, is a soundscape for our home.”

Charles Hutchinson catches up with brother Aaron, the electronics wiz, as Delays are re-launched on a 16-date tour after a change of label.

You moved from Rough Trade to Fiction Records for Everything’s The Rush but now you are on the move again. What’s happened, Aaron?

“It didn’t work out at all with Fiction, as is the nature of the business. Like everyone else we had visions of what we wanted to do, but they didn’t promote it and we wouldn’t have chosen Hooray and Keep It Simple as the singles. In fact we wouldn’t even have had them on the album.

“We kind of got pushed down the poppy route. Yes, we write melodic songs but lyrically they’ve always had a deeper meaning.

“Though I guess we were lucky we got the record released, it just wasn’t in the way we wanted. So for the new record, we’ve returned to working with Duncan Lewis, who produced our first record [Faded Seaside Glamour] and we’ve stripped back the sound.”

You have now signed to Lookout Mountain Records. Who are they?

“They’re a relatively new company in London, run by our publisher, who’s been with us from the start, always behind us, and we always want to work with people who are passionate about what we do, as that means more to us than anything.”

How did the songwriting progress?

“We’ve totally been able to indulge ourselves with this album, but for me and Greg, who write the songs, it was really difficult to write together this time. We fell out a lot and didn’t speak to each other for a while, and we had to address that.

“It’s not that we’d ever split up, as it’s worth too much to us, but for a month, it was like, ‘leave me alone because I want to kill you right now’. But even when we weren’t speaking, I knew we didn’t want to finish.”

What pulled you back from the precipice?

“Just the fact that we’d already written the majority of the album, and this is what we do and we believe in it so much.

“This is the first time I’ve listened to an album afterwards and it’s immediately my favourite.

“First and foremost you write for yourself and you want to be excited by what you do, and this album soundtracks a lot of things that have been going on in my life, but then obviously it’s judged by others, and sometimes out ten, which is weird. I wish it could be judged in goosebumps.

“When I listen to music, I need it to cause an emotional response.”

No doubt that philosophy applies to Delays’ songs too?

“That moment is the most alive you can feel, and then it’s gone. But when you play it live, no matter what frame of mind I’m in, I swim in it all.”

The new album was written as a soundtrack to late-night drives through the New Forest and sunrise at the Southampton docks. How did that theme develop?

“The idea of the journey on the album happened as we were doing it. We made the music in my bedroom and then afterwards we would end up driving through the city and the forest to the beach, and so we wanted to soundtrack that.”

You had a troubled time, Aeron, before making the last album, spending four months in hospital and taking a year to recover. How are you feeling now?

“When it first happened, I felt like a ship in a storm, getting battered from all sides, but I’m kind of a positive depressive guy and that can be difficult. It’s like someone had lifted the top of your head, and it felt like anything was possible at that point, even terrible things.

“But I no longer need to sky-dive. Now it’s about finding the fantastic in the normal, 100 per cent.

“It’s the music that can take you sky-diving.” Delays play The Duchess, York, on Wednesday, supported by Alvin Purple; tickets, £11 in advance on 0844 477 1000 or £13 on the door. Star Tiger, Star Ariel will be released on Lookout Mountain Records on June 21.