For the most part, Leeds-based unit trioVD's second album sharpens and refines the tactics delineated on their startling 2009 debut Fill It Up With Ghosts. That means harsh, metallic, densely interlocking riffage, punctuated by oddly barked vocal chants and acidic skronk-blasts and all performed with an exhilarating edge-of-the-seat velocity. But with production duties adopted by the band for the first time, Maze very effectively accentuates and develops other subtler but equally defining features. Sax and guitar are tweaked and processed to occupy such similar sonic space that the ear is constantly doing double takes, trying to figure out which instrument is responsible for what it's hearing. At the same time, the hi-tech electronics that glisten over the whole album create a glossy sheen – a little like US math-rock group Battles but with more bite. Amid all the regimented attack, the impressionistic improvisation ‘Ducks’ stands out both as a nod to abstract free jazz and a delicately diaphanous sound sculpture. It all adds up to a compelling and ultra-modern work of weird intelligence.