White Lung – Paradise

2014’s sterling Deep Fantasy saw White Lung thrashing away under a mushroom cloud of eardrum-rattling guitar effects – a triumphant honing of everything they’d done before. This fourth album feels like a further refinement; the melodies bigger, the textures more cryptic. For instance, Below wrenches a soaring chorus from soft, reverb-drenched beginnings, while Hungry’s wracked, refracted riffs are somehow both woozy and full of purpose.

There’s certainly an air of transition – White Lung seem caught between their desire to rock noisily and at pace, and their fast-developing melodic sensibilities – meaning that Paradise is a better pop record but less immediately fun than previous offerings. Still, with Mish Way’s storytelling abilities in finer fettle than ever, and the title track’s explosive, arms-aloft romanticism delivered as the kiss-off (“I’m all about you / You’re all about me too”), there’s more than enough to ensure their journey is still worth tagging along for.