Night Falls, the title of the second album by Baltimore quartet Thrushes, seems to mirror the title of their 2007 debut, Sun Come Undone. And in many ways the album feels more like a companion piece to its predecessor than a new chapter for the band, with similar production and faithfulness to the shoegaze guitar sound of the early ‘90s. But the more you listen to the two albums and compare them, the more it becomes clear that the new songs do represent some subtle but notable steps forward in the band’s songwriting and arranging.

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Night Falls demonstrates this mix of old and new ideas almost immediately, with the jarring false start of the opener “Trees,” which would fit in seamlessly on the band’s first album if not for that attention-grabbing trick. Each member of Thrushes seems to be coming into their own, with drummer Matt Davis and bassist Rachel Tracy gelling as a more formidable rhythm section than before. Guitarist Casey Harvey is still crafting Spector-esque walls of sound, but there’s a darker undercurrent to songs like “Juggernaut” and “Skywave” that recalls Sonic Youth circa Evol more than anything else.

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The Thrushes’ most notable evolution, though, may be that of singer/guitarist Anna Conner. Before, she’d sometimes fade into the band’s shimmering squall of guitar, like just another piece of the whole. But here, her vocals are mixed more prominently, and her performances are more emotionally engaging. The halfway point of the brooding standout “Used To You” is the moment where Conner commands the listener’s attention like never before, as the song’s opening groove is stripped down to foreground the central lyric: “noone has ever broken your heart/ it isn’t how you want to live/ I think someone should break your heart/ so that you know how much to give.” And as the song builds back up to a swirling climax, it becomes clear that the 2010 Thrushes have tricks up their sleeve that the 2007 Thrushes were never capable of.