Like semi-retired noughties UK punk-jazzers Led Bib, New York free-blasting former buskers Moon Hooch, and now a growing young coterie of riff-rooted outfits with more or less mutated jazz genes on the contemporary scene, Scottish drummer Graham Costello's Strata sextet don't flinch at combining John Zornian improv with turning the rock dial up to eleven.

But on this, their second album, (their first for the innovative Gearbox label) Strata temper their most turbulent raw-noise excursions with ambient hums, infectious minimalist loops, alternations of lyrically meditative short interludes and chord-punching rock, thrilling drumming from the leader, and arresting improv, notably from piano star Fergus McCreadie, and guitarist Joe Williamson.

Far from grabbing the listener by the throat from the off, Second Lives opens with a tranquil mid¬register drone buoying up quietly repeating piano motifs, before the swelling and fading horn hooks, contrastingly Steve Swallow-like bass murmurs and epic percussive finale of ‘Eudaimonia’ announces the band's parallel agenda, The flamethrowing sax opening of ‘Legion’ resolves in an ambient fade-out; ‘The Colossus’ turns a street-marching stomp into an exit not all that far from the Mission: Impossible theme, ‘Circularity’ is a reverie of tenor-sax sighs and softly ecstatic harmonies; and the pattering ‘Impetu’ releases a blistering post-boppish break from the gifted McCreadie.

Strata fuse all their diverse acquisitions with exhilarating aplomb, and the word on the pre-pandemic wires suggests their live show is even better.