Though this is the duo’s fourth album since their debut in 2016, it’s their first studio outing – and a somewhat different proposition as a result. Whereas the live recordings they’ve previously released tended to be long, continuous sets, this latest comprises smaller pieces ranging from just two to 13 minutes in length. At the same time, 77-year-old Brötzmann has the luxury of bringing a wider range of reed instruments into the mix. Even so, the intrinsic mood and emotional vocabulary they’ve developed in the last couple of years remain essentially unchanged. A thick smoke of apocalyptic melancholy lies over these improvisations. ‘This World Love’ has Leigh conjuring a dreamy, two-note wash on the pedal-steel, over which Brötzmann moans an aching despair. For ‘This Time Around’ Leigh pushes the guitar into the red, with keening strafes of controlled feedback summoning desperate alto slurs from the Teutonic terror. The aptly named ‘River Of Sorrow’ features an otherworldly microtonal hum and a clarinet cawing like a crow against a blood-red sky. Probably not one for the office Christmas party.