Efterklang - Magic Chairs

Last year’s Performing Parades captured Efterklang’s enchanting collaboration with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra and effectively encapsulated the band’s inviting oddness. In retrospect it seems like a heraldic full stop, summarising the Parades-period and, if not quite wiping the slate clean, certainly smudging it in preparation for their third album's subtle shift in sound. Casper Clausen’s vocals typify the toned down eccentricities, his emergence as unchallenged front man leads to a more conventional arrangement than their previously rudderless clan sound, but any tempering of their peculiarities feels fresh rather than compromised. Highlights are near-impossible to isolate: Modern Drift sets the tone beautifully; I Was Playing Drums raises goosebumps with its melting strings and trickling piano; and Full Moon is eighties electro-pop filtered through a toyshop orchestra. But ask tomorrow and a different three will likely rise to the top, such is the richness of Magic Chairs’ magisterial elegance.[Chris Buckle]