AS Belgium’s football team seem intent on proving at Euro 2016, having a collection of talented individuals all supposedly kicking the same way is no guarantee of success.

That’s why the approach-with-caution signs usually end up being plonked around anything remotely resembling a supergroup. For every Cream or Electronic, there’s a Freebass or The Power Station lurking in the wings. No wonder most artists now prefer to use the term “musical collective”, presumably in the same way binmen became refuse operatives.

Minor Victories went to even further lengths to disassociate themselves with the supergroup label. Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite,and Editors guitarist Justin Lockey had never even met before launching this project (we assume Lockey, at least, had met the fourth member; his brother James) and recorded their parts for this debut outing separately.

Despite this, they manage to be a lot more cohesive than Belgium. Minor Victories have no great style revelations in store; Justin Lockey provides the hooks, Braithwaite caters for the post-rock soundscape, and Goswell knits it all together with her lush, plaintive vocal array.

York Press:

Minor Victories

Tracks such as Breaking The Light, A Hundred Ropes and Give Up The Ghost could have dissolved without her, and she lends structure to songs crafted via email, Skype, text message, and presumably any other form of electronic communication this particular supergr…sorry, musical collective, could lay their hands on. Meanwhile, Folk Arp is lovely: gradual build-up, big finish, Minor Victories at their most assured.

Where things falter is when the likes of The Twilight Sad’s James Graham and Sun Kil Moon's Mark Kozelek are invited round for Scattered Ashes (Song For Richard) and For You Always respectively, as if Minor Victories’ key personnel wanted to reserve the best tunes for themselves.

Nevertheless, it’s an expansive, impressive entrance, and with more growl added to the grandeur, this project could become a poster-band for the virtues of having decent broadband.