The Philadelphia, New York and Washington DC-based quintet’s third studio recording is their first double album – and finds them stretching out in all sorts of directions. Sure, it comes on with the kind of energy we’ve come to expect, with a polyrhythmic gallop and a deep bass vamp over which poet Camae Ayewa announces: “Open the gates!/We arrive!/Energy time!” But, after this hip fanfare, the album spreads into less obviously strident moods. On ‘Keys To Creation,’ Luke Stewart plugs in an electric bass guitar and taps out a louche heartbeat while muted trumpet and synth washes suggest a noirish, nocturnal city-scape, morphing into an electric jam with a funky-drummer beat and burbling bass groove. Ayewa’s lyrical evocations have undergone a subtle transformation too, moving away from righteous declamation and investigating more elusive imagery. In the meandering, 20-minute ‘Water Meditation,’ over diaphanous synths and a pulsating bass hook, she invokes “the heavy drum of silence/the circle of the instruments” like a magic spell unfolding. The good news is that the Entanglements remain a vibrant – often violent – poetic force even while they are expanding their vision and exploring new vistas. They are still utterly vital.