Music from this release    • London Grammar: "Hey Now" (via
SoundCloud)   • London Grammar: "Wasting My Young Years" (via
SoundCloud)  When an album is proclaimed the frontrunner for the
UK's Mercury Music Prize before it's even released, it's a sign
of both the accelerated nature of the modern hype cycle as well
as a vote of confidence in a band's ability to deliver the
goods. That London Grammar have been the latest recipients of
this sort of breathless anticipation shouldn't shock-- their
influences are the kind of alternative-but-still-polite acts
generally favored by the prize, and they were featured on "Help
Me Lose My Mind", a highlight from Disclosure's Settle. But a
cynic tempted to dismiss their downcast take on spacious,
reverb-heavy pop as a calculated attempt to muscle into a
sizzling market would miss out on an accomplished debut that
belies the fact that this trio of Nottingham University
alumni wrote and recorded their first song together less than a
year ago.  That song-- the achingly slow-bu