Album review: For the Sake of Bethel Woods, by Midlake 

After a break of eight years, the Texas band return with a poignant album inspired by the death of one of their parents 

Midlake: For the Sake of Bethel Woods.

★★★★☆

One of the most enduring rules in pop decrees that the sunnier the music the more fraught the lives of the musicians making it. This explains why Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were such a soap opera and why the Lemonheads' Evan Dando burned out and faded away slightly while many of his mid-1990s indie peers rumbled on.