This is the latest album from Sydney indie-popsters Swirl, who formed around 1990, did the shoegazer thing in the early 90s, releasing their album The Last Unicorn on power-pop label Half A Cow, and then took a bit of a break. In the six or so years since their last album, Swirl's sound has changed quite a bit, becoming more polished, but also more mainstream and approachable.

The songs on Light Fill My Room are all pop songs; all have verses, choruses, prominent, intelligible vocals and, for the most part, quality songwriting, and are not likely to alienate anyone (in fact, in an earlier day, before the Britney-clones and kiddie-rap acts took over the charts, you could have reasonably expected to hear some of them on commercial radio). They vary from semi-acoustic guitar ballads (such as "Pinstripe Girl") to lush, layered numbers with string arrangements and electronic beats (the excellent "Black Candle", which sounds in some ways a bit like one of Dido's recent numbers). Mind you, the album has its weak moments; the singing children at the end of the otherwise good "Diamond Girl" sound a bit too Jimmy Barnes, and the fantasy ballad "History" sounds like a too facile and bubbly take on a potentially interesting concept. But these are minor complaints.

If you like quality pop with good songs that isn't a product of the boy-band sausage factory, you could do a lot worse.