Agent Fresco – Destrier

This Icelandic four-piece have a lot on their plate: metal-tinged falsetto, shuffling math-rock, blown-out prog, twinkling keys and a sprinkling of uncomfortably Queen-esque ‘big’ choruses – admittedly, a recipe that doesn't sound wholly appealing. But when the elements start to simmer, working together rather than competing for space, there’s a compelling drive to their second LP that rewards you for sticking at it.

Pyre is sharp, cinematic, and structured with a quirky kind of trip-rock that lightens its brooding undertones. Single See Hell has a strangely gentle nature for an otherwise furious sounding track, and is all the more interesting for it. The following Let the Curtain Fall is restrained, moving, precise... and frustrating, because in relief it exposes the posturing prevalent elsewhere on the record. Destrier can feel a little cramped – there are so many different threads at work that sometimes the track spacing seems arbitrary – but it's admirably ambitious in scope. [Katie Hawthorne]