Brother/sister duo Angus and Julia Stone had already released two albums, split up and embarked on solo careers when Rick Rubin came knocking, keen for them to record new material with him. Just what Rubin found so appealing isn't always obvious: the Australian duo's music has a languorous, slow-burn quality to it, and the pretty Wherever You Are shows off their understated vocals, but too often things feels very sanitised. The high-wire trick of pulling off thrilling MOR pop normally involves adding a bewitching strangeness to your conservative sounds. Yet Angus and Julia don't seem like weird enough people to make this work. They first started playing together while on a gap year travelling in Bolivia, have worked with Fran Healy and once supported Newton Faulkner – it's hardly a backstory to get the pulse racing. It's perhaps why tracks such as Grizzly Bear end up sounding more like Dire Straits than Fleetwood Mac: if you smooth things over too much, you're left with no edge at all.