WorldService Project's personnel have changed markedly since their first embattled Brexit response, Serve (2018), but the assaultive, defiant intent remains. “Politicians used to have to at least pretend to be statesmen… trying to do things for the good of the entire population,” leader Dave Morecroft says in press notes written from self-imposed Roman exile. “Now the whole thing is blown wide apart and it doesn't seem to matter anymore.”

It's a council of seeming despair, for a record released just as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson breezily prepared to break international law. ‘Sex, Lies, Lies and Lies’ is one response, Morecroft's murmured Italian vocal rising from the miasmic tension of his thriller keyboards into a raging aria declaring unity with Europe. ‘The Higgly Giggly Wiggly Woo’ sees the return of regular outsider clown character Mr. Giggles – part Babadook, part Royston Vasey resident, part ‘sink estate’ victim, ancient as Mr. Punch but mostly Morecroft's capering alter ego. The stiff, one-legged beat of the doomy ‘Where Am I?’, which achieves more antic abrasion as space-age fuzz guitar and keyboards prance and shriek over a glowering bass-line, is among the more interesting preludes to the many anthemic choruses which stud the album, ready to trigger audience reactions when they can. The effectiveness of such confrontation is always uncertain. The hymnal quiet of ‘Onward’, an inclusive embrace to wander into the night with, is therefore a welcome conclusion, Morecroft's solo quite beautiful.