After nearly a decade of sophisticated, musically ambitious melancholy, BHP has established itself as a venerable indie brand: bleak and creaky, erudite and weary, with sounds shaded by country and folk, the carnival and the Weimar era. The band's first full-length in four years (though the excellent In the Fishtank session with Dutch band Solbakken appeared in the interim), The Spell delivers many familiar BHP motifs -- Pall Jenkins' sandpapery delivery and poisoned poetry, Tobias Nathaniel's circling piano lines -- but gone is the Latin flavor of Amore del Tropico, and there's considerably more urgency and weight in the band's approach -- less saw, more beats. It's a good move. BHP's early, numbered records were fascinating like pirate ships passing in midnight fog, but they were ghosts without a ton of substance. The Spell delivers plenty of the band's uniquely dark and sinister texture, but it's got real teeth too, with its pounding midtempo rhythms, anxious guitar riffs, and angular arrangements. As such, The Spell, which sounds plenty good already, may turn out to age better than any previous BHP effort.