CO.WAR.DICE.

Seven years gone, and they come back not by recreating their twenties but by kicking the door off its hinges. The math-rock contortions that defined The Weird and Wonderful Marmozets have mostly gone. Groove arrived in their place, plus hooks and an unstable confidence that flickers between snarl and surrender, sometimes mid-bar. Becca Bottomley still screams like she means it but there's control underneath now, less interested in the spectacle of its own range. Cut Back is the one that will detonate live, arcade synths and four-to-the-floor drums that refuse to let the song breathe, a song that doesn't build toward anything and just keeps arriving. Then Dandy tilts the record, acoustic guitar and voice, the quiet centre of an album that mostly refuses quiet, written almost a decade ago and sounding like a younger version of the band reaching forward. For a group that came up sounding like nervous breakdowns set to time signatures, it's striking how often this one reaches toward light, not as resolution, more like a direction they keep stumbling in. Keep Going Darling runs past seven minutes and earns itself if you let it.