Tyneside trio Archipelago introduced their unique sound on their 2017 debut Weightless: a heady mix of post-rock drumming, free-bop saxophone and punchy bass guitar riffing spiced with electronica, like 1970s mavericks (and fellow North Easterners) Back Door thoroughly updated with an infusion of the indie-jazz sensibility of Polar Bear or Trio VD. This new record expands their musical horizon still further to include the songs and singing of saxophonist MacCalman. The sound is softer, broader and more diffuse, accommodating her clear, folk-inflected vocals and wonderfully liquid clarinet: the drum sound is more ambient and less close-miked, allowing the band to expand into new subtleties of texture and timbre, as on the mournful, epically adventurous ‘Wine Dark Sea’. ‘Waves’ provides evidence of their development as an intuitive unit, as the composition switches from folksong to heavy group riffing that collapses momentarily into chaos only to reconstitute itself miraculously back into the groove. ‘Chemical’ is pure unadorned power trio with MacCalman showing her mettle on sax over a punky prog backing, ‘Silhoutte’ sounds like the soundtrack to a midnight visit to an abandoned steelworks, and album closer ‘Burn On’ is an obliquely heartrending ballad that dissolves into a sea of electronic noise. There's a sonic and compositional diversity that combines to deliver an impressive unity of vision: a testament to the band's ever-increasing confidence and maturity.