Tim Smith, singer and songwriter with rising Texas folk-rockers Midlake, is uncommonly keen to talk about his influences. He likes Fleetwood Mac "a whole lot".

He practically modelled the band's debut album on Grandaddy and Flaming Lips.

But the record he name-checks most often is Isle Of View, the 1971 debut by one Jimmy Spheeris, whose stately crescendos and lyrics about scarlet ships and ripened wings recalled the mythic romance of the Moody Blues.

On the cover, a medieval night rides a giant eagle through golden treetops.

Smith has been listening to it constantly for the past three years.

"It's soft, with a lot of piano and acoustic guitars," he muses. "Maybe it just sounds like a place I want to go."

Released last month, and with a similarly bewitching power to ensnare you in its world, The Trials Of Van Occupanther is Midlake's second album, and the one which will see them become one of the most talked about bands of 2006.

A rich, inventive mix of pianos, horns, guitars and painfully wistful reminiscences, it takes its perplexing title from the hero of track four, an experimental scientist who lives a hermetic existence while contemplating the need "not be too consumed with this world".

"Van is not well liked by his neighbours," says Smith of his mysterious creation. "There's no real reason why which is how we can all feel sometimes. I stay home a lot myself.

"Back in Denton, the guys in the band will hang out with other musicians in bars but I'm not too social. I'm always busy hanging with the wife."

Most members of Midlake are married, a fact which came in handy when Smith devised the cover for The Trials Of Van Occupanther.

He wanted to photograph Eric Nicholson and Eric Pulido, who share keyboard and guitar duties, dressed up as characters from the album. Their wives were drafted in to help make the outfits.

"One wife sewed Van Occupanther's gold costume," he explains. "Then we made the panther mask, cutting off the bill of a baseball hat, building it up with chicken wire and covering it in papiermache. We like to have it on stage with us but it's too brittle to travel by plane."

Midlake are not, however, a band who survive on gimmicks. As one of their biggest supporters, movie star Jason Lee, puts it: "In an age of overly-used irony and disconnected nonchalance, this record actually means something. The Trials of Van Occupanther is now one of the most important modern records I own."

"We're pretty good friends now," says Smith of the My Name Is Earl actor and former professional skateboarder.

"He shot a video for us with lots of cops in foxes heads and he got us over here for a skateboarding show one time.

"I used to be a bit of a skater boy myself but I could only do the minimum tricks. I was always afraid of hurting my hands and not being able to play music anymore."

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