Charlie Citrine, the protagonist in Saul Bellow's Pulitzer Prize winning novel Humboldt's Gift, feels he has reached the crossroads. Here he must make a decision between an existence of ease, wrapped in the creature comforts of his beautiful girlfriend Renata, or a life of solitude, addressing the existential questions that plague him as he approaches his twilight hours. Charlie feels he has slept through the majority of his existence, clinging lazily to fickle successes, a weakening reputation, and trophy women who pass like revolving doors. But is it now too late to address the spiritual questions denied for so long? Is his legacy simply a fool's dream, squandered over time?

For all his meditation, and regardless of his intellectual reputation, Charlie seems to have committed a simplistic, but entirely human error: he has assumed that a choice must be made, that the heart and the mind cannot co-exist. That to achieve art you must suffer is a common-held myth, but Charlie is no martyr, just a man failing to realise that simple pleasures are as worthy as even the highest of aims.

Bishop Allen are, in essence, a pop band. But they are a wise pop band, one that realise that the label of 'pop' encompasses acts as diverse as The Beach Boys, The Flaming Lips, Of Montreal and Animal Collective; that pop music, especially in the indie realm, need not be a wall-to-wall collection of hooks and harmonies. In many ways Bishop Allen are the musical equivalent of Charlie's Renata, their 'key' songs have a happy-go-lucky charm, an inner beauty that endears them easily to the listener. It is the straight-faced beauty of these pop songs that will lead an inquisitive soul to pick up an album like The Broken String. But it is the wider vision of the record, its higher aims, which will have these people returning to The Broken String long after its initial novelty.

'Click, Click, Click, Click' is the peak of Bishop Allen's pop side. It's as sunny as Fountains of Wayne, as entwined in the past and as optimistic as Kevin from The Wonder Years, and runs a narrative similar to the storyline from The Wedding Crashers: "I wasn't someone they'd invite/And I didn't know the groom or know the bride." Musically the song employs all the conventions of recent indie pop: the picked guitars, reverb-soaked leads and xylophones, its drawcard, however, is the rhythmic hum of lead vocalists Justin Rice’s alliterated lines “Click, Click, Click, Click, Camera.” An album of nothing but this would be too saccharine heavy, like a post-Easter chocolate come-down, but used sparingly only a cynical bastard could deny its charm.

'Click, Click, Click, Click' is not the only pop song, it’s simply the head of this family tree. 'The News From Your Bed' starts in a fashion reminiscent to 'Stephen' from Voxtrot's recently long-player, later employing the group chorus sing-along to great effect. 'Rain' exercises its catchy licence in different fashion, opening with a rhythm driven section seemingly influenced by 'Love Cats'-era The Cure. Much like Tom Bradbury's comments on Voxtrot, simplistic lyricism is saved from pox status by Rice’s delivery and lack of pretension: “Oh, let the rain fall down/And wash this world away/Or let the sky be grey/'Cause if its ever going to get any better/It's gotta get worse someday."

When Bishop Allen evoke their more abstract side they do so with minimal fuss and small departures, the songs still grounded by memorable vocal melodies, albeit twisted to a more folk-like sound. At certain points Neon Bible styled instrumentation, such as 'The Chinatown Bus' with its picked refrain similar to that of Neon Bible's title-track, conjures links that could not be expected from hearing tracks like ‘Click, Click, Click, Click’. Lyrically the quasi-religious concerns of ‘Choose Again’ also echo The Arcade Fire, occupying similar headspace to Win Butler’s metaphysical ponderings. However, even in these rare moments, Bishop Allen only exist on the outside realms of the grandiosity of The Arcade Fire, producing a far more reserved affair, one led by Rice’s Mountain Goats-esque rhymes and cheery melodic skill.

The Broken String’s more insular moments, where the band are at their quietest and most concise, are perhaps the most mesmerising; the gentle elegance of 'Shrinking Violet', with its banjo-led, traditional sound, being a particular standout. The subtle divergence that weaves throughout songs such as these, and the album as a whole, ensures The Broken String’s artistic value – the tunes all fitting in the same shoe box, the colours and shapes being the qualities that matter.

Charlie Citrine had to be abducted, left bankrupt and made singular to find his purpose. But one gets the sense it didn’t have to be that way. If he’d got on with the doing of his grand designs instead of fretting over outcomes maybe he could have spared himself some heartache. The Broken String would suggest so, as here the head and the heart have coincided – lyrically-focused, divergent folk sitting alongside commercial-ready pop – without alienating either side.