One short year on from their debut, For the First Time – a record of klezmer, post-rock and acerbic sprechgesang, among other things – Black Country, New Road are back. This time with fewer tongue-in-cheek lyrics about telling someone you love them while watching black midi or performing in “the world’s second-best Slint tribute act”, and instead more soulful tenderness.

For the First Time had barely landed before the band were planning their next steps: “Taking the weirdness… and making that more subtle,” saxophonist Lewis Evans explained in an interview last year. Follow-up Ants From Up There certainly sees them stretch and explore their sound, rather than, as Evans put it in this record’s accompanying press release, making “a record that sounded even more like Slint”. It’s tempting to see this as the album they had always wanted to make. One that’s not part of any scene but timeless; the delicate moments more touching, its epic swell more forceful.

The swinging, effervescent Chaos Space Marine bursts with open-hearted emotion, Isaac Wood’s voice straining as he proclaims, “so what… I love you.” A mellifluous, intricate musical motif weaves through the record, as does Wood’s exploration of escape and separation.Concorde builds from simple percussion into a joyous explosion of sound, while on Bread Song, he affectionately warns “don’t eat your toast in my bed” before the music envelops you in tremulous shimmers.

As the band emerged, they were known for being hyperaware and winkingly knowing, but here the album’s title hints at a change in perspective. A zooming out over the world, and the smallness of everyday life. It makes for a record bathed in warmth and sincerity.

Danny Wright