Adult Jazz – Gist Is

There's something reluctant about Adult Jazz's debut LP. The four-piece, Leeds Uni alumni and students of Joanna Newsom, Van Morrison and Animal Collective, have taken their time to craft nine songs of enduring scope and warmth, despite seeming to vaguely resent the idea of making it. While songs like Spook swell and meander, tugging the heartstrings in all the right places, they're hobbled by distractible lyrics that would rather deconstruct the anthemic impulse than sate it.

Bizarrely, this makes for consistently thrilling listening. Am Gone, which underlays the carcass of stadium folk with eviscerated African rhythms, double-bluffs cynical listeners by applying weary vocals and elegantly sighing harmonies to a carefully crafted pop structure. Meanwhile, Spook's conflicted protagonist embarks on a seemingly overwrought quest for major key rapture, yet the song whisks the listener into its meta-universe with aplomb. Wild Beasts, Everything Everything, These New Puritans – to this list of prospective national treasures, be sure to add Adult Jazz. [Jazz Monroe]