Corrie Dick wears his prodigious rhythmic education lightly, having studied with Ghanaian master Sadiq Addy alongside mind-blowing times in Morocco, prior to driving Dinosaur's electric Milesian grooves. Where his solo debut Impossible Things (2015) had a spiritual, airy quality, Sun Swells attempts jazz with rock power trio instrumentation at its core, and singer-lyricist contributions from Marianna Sangita and Dave Malkin, the latter's rich, woody tone redolent of early 1970s UK folk-rock.

Opener ‘Warehouse’ brims with compositional ambition, from its initial staccato piano and cymbals through ska and dub phases, rooted by Dick's bass-drum's thudding, shifting pulse as Malkin sings of an ecologically burning world. ‘Fingers Full of Meaning’ has the hardest rock crunch, but is as notable for Tom McCredie's bubbling post-punk and Afro-funk bass. Laura Jurd's trumpet draws a fine, mournful thread through ‘Sinking’, as Sangita sings the first of several affirmations of female lives.

Malkin similarly serves the wounded male protagonist of ‘Everything the Light Touches’ with a stately balladeer's croon, then conjures the Hebridean vistas of ‘We Were Green’, returning in spirit to Impossible Things. “You’re a Scotch mist that envelops and smothers/and you’re the burning sun from which it runs,” he sighs, as vocal harmonies, brass and steel guitar assume the mist's qualities.

Dick's castanet-like clicks introduce Alice Zawadzki's warmly conversational vocal on ‘She Speaks More’, while ‘Golden Flowers’ is a courtly, Celtic waltz over pensive classical piano. ‘The River’ closes with a calypso lilt, featherlight dub and Joe Webb's gorgeous, rousing organ solo. The variety is held together by the songwriting, and the individual strengths of Dick's exceptional band.