Tunng is a subtle mix of folky music allied to complex arrangements of imaginative, insistent drumming and brilliant keyboards. Their previous album Good Arrows was whimsical and pleasurable; And then We Saw Land is a step forward, adding to the mix passionate, anthemic moments that seize the listener. Both of the band’s singers, Mike Lindsay and Becky Jacobs, offer the same soft Brit-folk voicings, but both evoke the lyrical words wonderfully. At first it sounds like something you heard around a campfire; only upon extended listening does it become clear that And then We Saw Land is very much a careful studio orchestration, one of brilliance. Several tracks are corkers: ‘Don’t Look Down or Back’, with its elegiac beginnings slowing down into a near stop then bursting into dramatic chorus; bouncy ‘Hustle’; the twangy, odd ‘The Roadside’; and the crunchy blippy syncopation of ‘Sashimi’.
And then We Saw Land is intelligent folk-oriented music with a post-rock slant. 3½ stars.