IT'S almost three years since Slow Club released their second album, Paradise. On it, the Sheffield duo - Rebecca Taylor and Charles Watson - made a giant leap forward from their playful 2009 debut, Yeah So. Gone was the puppyish energy and naval-gazing that characterised that first record, and in came a more serious, brooding kind of introspection and maturity to their music.

Now they're about to unveil their third album Complete Surrender, and it is, again, another giant leap on, with brass and string sections and giant arrangements. It's not just a case of adding them for the sake of it, either, the new songs are worthy of such treatment.

Despite the big-sounding songs, the duo say it was actually the easiest album they've made so far, partly down to having such a clear idea of how they wanted it to sound before they even attempted recording.

"We demoed everything before we went to the studio," says Taylor, "so there wasn't a lot to work out when we got there. We had this ethos that everything had to be simple, direct and beautiful, so we just kept that in mind at all times."

The ease of making Complete Surrender was also partly down to producer Colin Elliot, who established the legendary Yellow Arch Studios in Sheffield, where Complete Surrender was recorded, in 1996. It's where a great number of albums have been made, namely each of Richard Hawley's solo records. Elliot also plays in Hawley's live band.

"We both really love and respect Colin," says Taylor. "And being in a duo, there is sometimes compromise on the direction of a song, but with Colin, his word was final and he was always right."

"The studio is a magic place, too," adds Watson. "Colin finishes at six o'clock because he's got a family and a proper life, which was great for us. It's the closest thing to having a routine we've ever had."

Elliot's speedy, efficient work also left Taylor no time to get impatient, as she says she's in the habit of doing. "Given what the album is about, it's amazing it sounds so relaxed."

Taylor's songs on Complete Surrender - there's almost an even split of the album's 11 tracks - all detail a particularly nasty break-up the previous year, that saw her retreat from London back to Sheffield, rebuild herself and come back stronger. As a result, her songs, which range from stark opener Tears Of Joy to the country ballad of The Queen's Nose to the Motown-esque Suffering Me, Suffering

"Some of the songs on this album, in the past, I would have felt silly singing," she says. "But we've let ourselves go there, production-wise and lyrically. How I feel about life has changed, and I very much think you should trust your instincts and go with something if you want to."

Watson hasn't held back, either. One of the album's standouts, his song Number One, is an ode to his girlfriend that's hugely honest and absolutely beautiful.

"I don't always feel like writing something like that," he says, going on to say he's never really been that comfortable with taking centre stage or appearing in the band's videos. "Weirdly, the thing that seems to make the most difference to the sort of song I write is the room I'm in. If I'm in a nice room with tall ceilings and loads of sunlight, I open up. Fortunately, when we were making this record I lived in a house that had a gorgeous view, so I'd sit looking out as the sun came in.

"Basically, I just try to write a song that I would want to listen to in that moment."

One of the most impressive things about Complete Surrender as a whole is how coherent it sounds. Often, when bands have two songwriters providing their own compositions, you're left with an album of two halves. While it's not hard to spot which bits are Taylor's and which are Watson's, the album doesn't sound disjointed.

The pair's individual working practices also complement one another, with Watson constantly starting new songs and never finishing them - he says he has hundreds of first verses - while Taylor rarely writes more than she needs for an album.

"It's good because I love finishing songs, part of my impatient nature, I suppose," she says. "So Charles will push me to write more songs, and I will beg him to stop.

"But no matter who has written a song, it's us. The fact we've both worked on something means it's Slow Club."

n Slow Club's third album Complete Surrender is released on July 14

TOUR DATES: July 10, Middlesbrough Georgian Theatre; July 25-27, Deer Shed Festival, North Yorkshire