Here We Go Magic began as a dreamy bedroom chamber-folk experiment, but on their second release, leader Luke Temple emerges with a full-on band, unfurling rich harmonies and sharp-elbowed melodies over Peter Hale's antsy, inventive drumming. The tunes are less straightforwardly catchy than before, woozy waltz "Bottom Feeder" notwithstanding. But the energy and spirit of invention keep it interesting: See the abstract vocal-percussion jam "Vegetable or Native," a playful revival of Soft Machine-style art rock.

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”