Two years ago Guernsey born and raised artist Mura Masa launched out of the comparative underground right into the upper echelons of the current pop world with a self-titled debut album combining elements of hip hop, electronica and dance that led to him performing stand out sets at festivals like Glastonbury, Reading and Coachella and selling out tours of Europe, the USA and Japan.

Now he’s back with a new album, R.Y.C, again packed with big name collaborators, albeit maybe of a slightly more focussed sort, and a slightly different feel.

Even before I got to listen to R.Y.C. there was clearly something of a buzz around the record with the mainstream critics divided on it. The Guardian gave it one star in their review and NME a resounding five and, as sometime collaborators Without pointed out on Twitter, if you’re dividing critics that extremely you must be doing something worth listening to.

Opening with sort of title track Raw Youth Collage it instantly feels more organic than the first album but with all the production hallmarks Mura Masa laid out there still intact.

Along with that it introduces us to the concept of the record (also mentioned in the liner notes for those with a physical edition), that I think may be part of what’s led to the critical divide, as it explores what it means to become an adult for the generation currently going through that.

Across its three minutes Raw Youth Collage raises plenty of big questions and concerns and highlights many of the issues effecting people in their late teens and early twenties above and beyond just living their own lives.

No Hope Generation continues this scene setting in a little more detail with an infectious mix of emo and hip hop inflected pop, a little like what I imagine Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly might have done if he’d appeared now and not fifteen years ago.

Along with that we get to hear fully for the first time the voice of Mura Masa providing lead vocals and it’s clear we are both literally and metaphorically hearing directly from the man ‘behind the laptop’ (I’m sure its far more than that these days), Alex Crossan, far more directly than ever before.

This is something that certainly differentiates this from the first album as Mura Masa also plays all the main instruments on the record such as guitars, bass and even harmonium as well as the synths, programming and drum sequencers of old.

With these instruments he presents a broader range of sounds with a definite addition of more indie rock and, on Vicarious Living Anthem, even into something approaching punk rock in sound.

While we do get a few more examples of Mura Masa ‘going solo’ so to speak, again the record has some choice collaborators appearing; Clairo and Georgia both bring a modern pop sensibility to the nostalgically influenced music on their appearances and Ned Green adds a spoken word element that gives us an interlude that takes us directly into some of the more physical concerns of young people.

A couple of tracks really stand out from the pack in the collaborations though.

First is Deal Wiv It featuring slowthai that had been released with a rather excellent video as one of the previews of the record.

With the Mercury Prize nominated rapper fast becoming a voice of the modern young Britain he fits in perfectly here on undeniably the dirtiest and grittiest sounding cut on R.Y.C. that for my money could become a landmark track of the year.

The other stand out moment comes with Teenage Headache Dreams, and particularly its first half, which features Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice.

Again it has a fine indie pop/rock feel underpinned by dance rhythms but what really makes it so memorable is the combination of Roswell and Mura Masa’s voices which work together brilliantly.

It’s all then topped off by the, sort of, instrumental (nocturne for strings and a conversation) that feels like slipping off to sleep after the prior headache dreams, or maybe it’s the oncoming numbness of ‘regular’ adulthood (whatever that is), either way it rounds things off nicely and on a rather unexpected note.

While the initial set up of the concept R.Y.C. maybe promises a little more than it finally delivers though it remains far from a failure on that level and it does explore plenty of issues while capturing a real feeling of the problems of life for young adults in modern Britain (something that I’m sure will frustrate the Gammons and lead to calls of ‘snowflake’, so it must be doing something right).

As well as which it’s made up of a bunch of great songs with three or four real standouts that combine styles in a way that shows Mura Masa exploring new territory while keeping what made his name firmly intact, so R.Y.C. is a great listen and far from a troubled second album and I feel it could, to the right listener, be a genuine generational landmark record.