It seemed as though HMLTD’s moment had come and gone. A couple of years ago, their riotous gigs were the most fun you could have while paying too much for warm cans of lager, but a deal with Sony seemed a stretch for a band who, no matter how great they were live, didn’t seem to be rolling in radio-friendly hit singles. They were duly dropped and, as their contemporaries from the scene based around the Windmill in south London overtook them – Shame, Goat Girl, Black Midi – HMLTD seemed condemned to having been a brief but startling firework.

Having relocated to Lucky Number, they’ve finally brought out their debut. Some of the songs from those frantic shows are here – To the Door; Satan, Luella and I; Where’s Joanna? – but there’s ample evidence that they’ve also learned how to write conventionally structured pop songs in the interim: Mikey’s Song wouldn’t sound out of place on Radio 2. They’re most exciting, though, when you can hear them throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, when Kurt Weill, spaghetti western themes, glam rock, goth and electro all collide and fight to be heard.

They have a default setting, which is a kind of arena goth (Death Drive is Suicide at stadium scale). But at its best, West of Eden is thrilling and unsettling. Where’s Joanna? sounds drunk on its own invention, and then you listen to the lyrics, in which Henry Spychalski outlines a sex-and-dismemberment fantasy that treads a line between grand guignol and offensiveness that is artistically apt but morally queasy. There’s a great, daring band in here – HMLTD are far more than Poundland Bowies.