WU LYF is dead. Long live LUH.

Such dramatic proclamation feels entirely fitting where the new joint venture from Ellery James Roberts, he of distinct and tricky timbre, is concerned. Cast your minds back to January 2012 as Roberts and his previously enigmatic charges tackle their biggest mainstream moment in the sun, entering an at turns scabrous and spirited performance of the brilliant ‘Heavy Pop’ on Late Night with David Letterman. A demure audience bears witness to apparent apathy and arrogance from the frontman, fresh to his twenties, before he and his band shuffle awkwardly offstage, leaving the booming dismissive laughter of their host behind.

A snapshot such as this, for an outfit with little interest in kowtowing to convention, spoke to a short lifespan, and so it proved as Roberts called time on their exploits, fleeing the scene in the autumn of that year. A reasonable end for such an esoteric endeavour - live fast, die young, good-looking corpse, et cetera. Alas, it appeared that Roberts might have been done with music entirely. Smash cut four years later to the covenant of summer and the Manchester native has turned his own promise into rather astounding purpose.

Boy meets girl is a tale as old of time, but not all of them involve a scuffle that results in broken glass and bloodshed at a house party. Yet those elements laid the groundwork for the union of Roberts and his other half; Dutch artist Ebony Hoorn. As Roberts detailed this vivid encounter in a recent Pitchfork interview, he opted for the kind of summary that, much like his vocal technique, is unlikely to discover a middle ground between winsome and wince-inducing.

'Suddenly all that was once so concrete fell to sand again.'

If all of this sounds A Little Too Much, best bail out now. LUH deal exclusively in the ostentatious, their life-affirming anthems – for they are precisely that – epic in scale and ambition even in times of peaceful contemplation. Together with producer Bobby Krlic – known for conjuring altogether more dense fare under the guise of The Haxan Cloak – Roberts and Hoorn embrace the positives in the world around them in a vice-like grip from the opening seconds of their debut. ‘I&I’ is just how a record bearing the moniker of Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing should commence. Laced with the assurance of the new, its shake-off-the-cobwebs refrain of “If you’re not ready, forget it, lay down and fall back to sleep” rings out as bold invitation rather than exclusionary mission statement.

The following hour is viewed through the wistful prism of the hopeless romantic, only here the prospect of something tangible almost always lies ahead. ‘Unites’ is another outstretched hand, the pair combining to enquire; “Are you ready to see this world open up before you?”. ‘Beneath the Concrete’, armed with a fists-to-the-heavens chorus, is purpose-built for the final song at a subterranean nightclub that operates until dawn. Immediate companion 'Future Blues' washes in with the soundtrack for the hazy stumble home. That none of this comes across like weird cult histrionics, that any and indeed all of it manages to resonate as sharply as it does, is a testament to the couple's relentless fortitude.

Such charm is difficult to resist, even as Roberts and Hoorn flirt with abandon, feverishly painting with every colour at their disposal. Take a track like ‘$ORO’; perhaps the ultimate ‘Yeah, this shouldn’t work’ effort found on Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing. Simply put, it’s a ludicrous affair that hurls everything at the wall, the resulting mess held triumphantly aloft, auto-tuned vocals and ornate rhythms coming to feel like natural extensions of these future warriors. Throughout, Hoorn proves a warm counterpoint to Roberts’ gravel-tinged growl, a steady hand with which to guide. ‘Someday Come’ best exemplifies this yin and yang as she delicately grounds a rather frantic opposite, both sides melting into one coherent pattern as another ascent blooms.

Their jubilation is palpable, and it is real. Stretching out the acronym, ‘Lost Under Heaven’ goes all-out grunge but Roberts and Hoorn never allow their specific dovetail to falter. ‘Lament’, an updated version of a winningly scattershot 2013 solo release, benefits from the extra space afforded to it as unabashedly naked expression unearths raw absolution. Once more, Ellery James Roberts finds himself with a unique project that may well burn so intense that there are no corners left to light. Would be a shame, though.