Andy Sheppard has been guesting live wherever possible with the Espen Eriksen Trio since 2016. He blends perfectly into this album's unity of emotional purpose, the ambiguity of which is summed up in its title. One of the Trio's other rare collaborations was with another ECM artist, the spiritual saxophonist Trygve Seim, and Eriksen's bright, chiming tone and minimalist tendencies would easily fit that label's Nordic catalogue. The critic Luca Vitali also sees him in a lineage with Esbjörn Svensson, though this gentle band share little dynamically with EST. Eriksen's comfort with pop and folk-like melodies and (understated) groove are perhaps post-Svensson, but the whole spare tradition since Garbarek is present too. The immediate warmth of the melodies Eriksen wrote with Sheppard in mind are what count, anyway. The saxophonist hushes down to meet the pianist on their first, intimate assignation, ‘Above the Horizon’. Then time stretches to the heartbeat-slowing rhythm of ‘1974’, Sheppard a cool summer breeze over Andreas Bye's easy shuffle, everyone sluggish in the heat, till a final, fatalistic shrug of a Sheppard solo. The title-track is the stately unfolding of a static mood, and the same could be said of the album. It may disappoint if you prefer evenings where barstools are thrown, but the meditative effect is like a good night's last Scotch. Nagging melancholy is met with quiet reason. It's the Norwegian way.