It's always a pleasure to write about a new local album, especially one as ambitious as this week's offering from Nine Mile Stone.

The band (née The Mellow Drops) launches this debut album under their new name in Baycourt's main theatre this Saturday, July 30 and I've been lucky enough to have a copy of the CD, All Roads Lead Home, for the last week. Anyone worried that the new moniker could signal a change of musical direction need not fear: the name may have changed, but the song remains the same.

And this album is a big bold statement of intent as the band unleashes 10 characteristic songs, many long stately epics with a huge and complex sound (courtesy of Tim Julian's Welcome Bay studio, The Colour Field and his ever tasteful and sympathetic production).

Nine Mile Stone at their most basic are two singer/songwriter/guitarists, originally from Ireland. Cian O'Cinnseala has the higher voice and plays acoustic; Derek Toner has the lower voice – or at least rarely strays into the aching tenor territory that Cian's mix of vulnerability, anguish and anger straddles so well – and plays the electric guitar, most notably in the supple and imaginative single note riffs he layers across songs.

That is one of notable features of the opener ‘Accidents and Emergencies', and if you want to know whether you'll like the album, just listen to that one song as it contains more than a few Nine Mile Stone trademarks from the acoustic guitar rhythms to the unusual electric guitar riff (and very nice it is too), a great vocal from Cian, a few different musical sections, a serious lyric about mortality (a theme that haunts the album), a beautiful harmony singing interlude (the other voice being Leilani Taula), and a running time of seven and a half minutes.

The word that keeps coming to my mind with this album is ‘serious'. The lyrics are about illness, fear and acceptance of death, drug addiction and, well, man's place in the world. Serious stuff. The songs are long, meticulously arranged mini-epics. One cannot help but admire the sheer single-mindedness of vision that emerges.

Fortunately they have an adept and solid rhythm section in the shape of bassist Paul Bloxham and drummer Tim Frame and the subtle use of keyboard colouring and complex harmonies keep the songs interesting and varied.

While their sound is very contemporary – the blend of acoustic and electric guitars, the rhythms and the harmonies, all have a very British feel – and can be placed in the same general bag as a lot of bands, be it Coldplay, the Verve or others, the influence that keeps showing through is that of Pink Floyd, and most specifically Roger Waters.

It's there in the occasional use of sound effects, but is more noticeable in the melodic style, often long one-note lines held over descending or ascending chord progression, and in the lyrics, which echo his searing honesty, willingness to take on big themes, and occasional earnest overreach.

The variety that comes from two complementary voices is another benefit. Derek's punchy punky ‘The Photograph', with its layers of vocals is particularly effective – perhaps he is the David Gilmour to Cian's Waters?

One trap with music of such dedicated seriousness is the possibility of slipping towards the self-important, and the epic ‘Children of a Lesser God', with its solemn piano opening, samples of Martin Luther King Jr's ‘I have a dream' speech, orchestral flourishes and slow build towards positively gargantuan guitar riffs is in danger of that.

But what to one person may seem grandiose, to another might just be grand. And the band saves its most touching melody to follow it, the beautiful lilting ‘One Friend Down', both sparse and heartfelt, and highlighting the magic combination of Cian and Derek's harmony singing: their voices really do blend into a thing of beauty.

I don't know quite where these guys go from here. Despite having a distinct individual sound their songs are not easily compressed into radio-friendly singles. The next step might be the hardest yet, but an album as accomplished as All Roads Lead Home is a pretty good start.