Field Music: Plumb – review

On first play, the Sunderland Brewis Brothers ' fourth album sounds baffling. There are innumerable time signatures and gear shifts – a dozen just in the opener, Start the Day Right. However, perseverance brings rich rewards, as the complexities start to make a weird sense and you end up swept along in their ever-changing moods and a musical palette that stretches from the Beatles' Abbey Road-era orchestrations to XTC's jerky pop . However, where 2010's Field Music (Measure) sprawled over 70 minutes, Plumb crams 15 tracks into 35, never losing pop sharpness, whether funky – Is This a Picture? – or angular-anthemic – (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing . There's an undercurrent of what Pink Floyd once called "quiet desperation … the English way" – to Sorry Again, Mate, or the beautiful, childhood reminiscing Hide and Seek to Heartache, but these are terrific songs worthy of celebration.