Wandering Monster’s third release Zenna opens with moody atmospheric piano chords from Richard Harrold, hinting at a minor-key, folkish melody; the rest of the band steal in, one by one, with Calvin Travers’ chiming guitar and Ben Powling’s skirling tenor sax, before bassist/leader Sam Quintana and Tom Higham coalesce into a loping groove; we might think of Cinematic Orchestra or late period Talk Talk, or similar purveyors of mournfully uplifting atmosphere, and the track’s title ‘A Beautiful Blur’ is certainly apposite.

The young quintet share an approach to jazz with their fellow Leeds scenesters Roller Trio, Matthew Bourne and Submotion Orchestra, in that they eschew bop and swing in favour of a vocabulary of harmony and licks derived as much from fusion and post rock as from the ECM tradition, while retaining the dynamic sensitivity of a (mostly) acoustic line-up. This album really sees them hitting their stride: the band are tight enough to sound crisply accurate on the intricate unisons of ‘Push It All Away’ and the title track, then confident enough to let everything hang out on the free-time atmosphere of ‘What We Talked About’, while the writing and performances are meshed in complement to pack a real emotional punch.

A highlight is the reading of Jaco Pastorius’ ‘Okonkole Y Trompa’ with its Steve Reich piano and Quitana’s colossal arco bass - reminiscent of GoGo Penguin, with whom the Monsters share a certain emotional habitat: perhaps a high moorland or mountain pass, or a moonlit city street at midnight. Randy Newman’s ‘Cowboy’ gets a towering reading to conclude. Their best yet.