Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan

Predicting the Dirty Projectors’ next step is a pointless task. Led by idiosyncratic frontman David Longstreth, the Brooklyn-based quintet explore rock's more challenging catacombs, often teetering on the verge of prog. But this tendency to experiment is, almost always, infused with an easy sense of melody that opens up awkward affairs like 2009’s gorgeous Bitte Orca.

In this vein, album number six in the their prolific decade-long career to date is possibly the Projectors’ most accessible. Masterful cuts like Just From Chevron and the string-bleeding About To Die are still laced with pirouetting time signatures and matadorial guitars, but there’s a creamier feel to their delivery. Built entirely to entrance, Gun Has No Trigger’s hypnotic mist and the shimmering chimes of Impregnable Question’s are symptomatic of the album’s gentile – yet deceptively intricate – nature. Smooth and simple, Swing Lo Magellan has the makings of another Dirty Projectors classic. How utterly predictable. [Billy Hamilton]