London Grammar - If You Wait (2013) Vinyl

When an album is proclaimed the frontrunner for the UK's Mercury Music Prize before it's even released, it's a sign of both the accelerated nature of the modern hype cycle as well as a vote of confidence in a band's ability to deliver the goods. That London Grammar have been the latest recipients of this sort of breathless anticipation shouldn't shock-- their influences are the kind of alternative-but-still-polite acts generally favored by the prize, and they were featured on "Help Me Lose My Mind", a highlight from Disclosure's Settle. But a cynic tempted to dismiss their downcast take on spacious, reverb-heavy pop as a calculated attempt to muscle into a sizzling market would miss out on an accomplished debut that belies the fact that this trio of Nottingham University alumni wrote and recorded their first song together less than a year ago.