The first time I saw Toy was supporting the Horrors a couple of years ago and to be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed. I’d been expecting great things, but – and maybe it was nerves, or maybe they weren’t quite ready for the cavernous Brixton Academy – it was all a bit lacking in definition. Lost in translation. The second time was at this summer’s Standon Calling, and I was pleasantly surprised – maybe a sweaty tent full of unwashed party people is closer to their natural habitat. So when I heard that those young Dalston upstarts had made it through to that ‘difficult’ second album, I must admit I was intrigued.

Things get off to a suitably epic start with opener ‘Conductor’, a 7-minute instrumental jam that moves from cascading, overlapping synths through to reverb-heavy guitars. Waves of sound swell and break over and over again before droning out over throbbing bass and drums. It builds an almost hypnotic atmosphere, which carries through to the jangly shoegaze-meets-early Beatles ‘You Won’t Be The Same’. Lead singer Tom Dougall’s laidback vocals are nicely backed up by sweet-sounding harmonies, with a nice undercurrent of rolling tom drums. However, the song seems to lose its way a bit with a somewhat repetitive extended instrumental section, before coming to a fairly inauspicious end. ‘As We Turn’ is cut from similar cloth, but fortunately feels far more thought through. With lush filmic synths and strings, it’s a real head-bopper and, although it does stray into jam territory at times, it keeps up the pace far better.

Title track ‘Join The Dots’ is up next, and it definitely feels like they’re ramping things up a bit. The opening bass line has a funky, almost disco-like feel to it and, while 2 minutes of it feels a bit much, it lays the foundation for a swirling, hypnotic, chemically-enhanced drone of a song. And if ‘Join The Dots’ is party, ‘To A Death Unknown’ is the most mellow morning after ever committed to tape. With soft-tongued vocals half-whispered over hazy, lazy-fingered guitars, it makes me feel bleary-eyed just listening to it (but in a good way). It’s a brief respite though, and the rest of the album rattles and shudders between psychedelic pop and droning jams. ‘Endlessly’ sounds like a night out at the best indie club my 19-year old self never found, as dirty, almost grungy guitars give way to chiming guitars and a feelgood chorus. ‘It’s Been So Long’ is a buzzing, shimmering synth affair, while ‘Left To Wander’ at times sounds almost New Order-esque, with Dougall’s vocals climbing up through some interesting incremental key changes. The album finally closes with ‘Fall Out Of Love’, another ambitious, droning pounder. Toy have proven time and again on this album how good they are at this, and it swells and soars in all the right places. However I can’t help but think that any song running to 10 minutes needs to do something spectacular, and unfortunately I’m not really feeling it with this one.

Nonetheless I’m pleased to say that, for the most part, Join the Dots is the sound of Toy starting to live up to all that promise; a chiming, cascading, shuddering, soaring hour of mesmeric psychedelia. Sure, there are tracks that could do with having a couple of minutes shaved off, and I’m not sure we need quite so many extended jams. But, more importantly, this is the sound of a band coming into focus – a million miles from that underwhelming spectacle in Brixton Academy – not to mention raising high hopes for Album Number Three.