Though they pulled it off incredibly well live, Tunng have always sounded like a studio project, hence the nu- / laptop- / future- folk albatross that’s plagued them from the start. Possibly in a deliberate attempt to escape that tag, Good Arrows sees them for the first time sounding like a live band; it’s no surprise to discover that, while co-founders Mike and Sam were responsible for the lion’s share of Mother’s Daughter And Other Songs and Comments Of The Inner Chorus, this third album was recorded as a full six-piece.

Not coincidentally, the record is the band’s most accessible to date, and save for a few touches – climbing into aortas, catching bullets in teeth, that sort of thing – there’s less Wicker Man witchery evident in the lyrics. The occasional inter-tune sample (“and how your tiny hands played with my bosom”) can compete with idiosyncratic Inner Chorus gems like “Jenny, so shy” and “the books have nothing to say”, but the tunes themselves are relatively straightforward.

Inner Chorus was rightly hailed as one of the finest releases of 2006 – yes, 2006, and Mother’s Daughter was 2005… for a bunch of hippies, they’ve got quite a work ethic – but if one criticism can be levelled at the record, it’s that the sonics can sometimes swamp the songcraft, a little inconsistent behind the glitches. By stripping away some of the high-profile production touches, Good Arrows allows more space for the tunes themselves – eleven in total, all with single-word titles, allegedly telling a secret story if correctly arranged.

Thus exposed, the consistency of the new batch is undeniable, with every song superior to the weaker moments of Inner Chorus; yet, with the exception of Bullets, neither is there anything with the immediate appeal of Chorus highlights like Woodcat or Jenny Again. With repeated listens, however, the charm of the rest of the album becomes evident. And if Soup’s sudden heavy metal air-guitar explosion still comes as a shock, just take it as welcome evidence that, despite the newly revealed penchant for pop, this marvellous band remain reassuringly off-kilter.