Bristol keeps on delivering, producing consistently quality bands that sound nothing alike. Sans Froid are unmistakably Bristol, and sound like nobody else.

Back into the Womb is Sans Froid’s sophomore album with eleven tracks in thirty five minutes, and it’s at once part of the ArcTanGent-adjacent Bristol tradition of tricky arrangements and strange time signatures, and also something much older. This is a prog rock record in the lineage of the first wave from the seventies with a lilting and pastoral quality and the mystical atmosphere of Glastonbury and the surrounding landscape immediately recognisable, with a magical quality that’s rooted in the land.

If you zoom in the lyrics are anything but fantastical, dealing with the overwhelming cacophony of the modern world, and the demands and difficulties of today. The tension between the ancient, spiralling music and the grounded, modern and emotionally direct lyrical content is a fascinating quality with music that sounds like it belongs to another age, but lyrics about right now.

Aisling Rhiannon’s voice is the confident centrepiece. Proficient, poised and theatrical, she drives the band forward with an intensity that keeps the complex arrangements from ever feeling cold, with melodic writing of an extraordinary standard that’s easy to follow even when the time signatures underneath are doing very strange things.

The band sounds way bigger than a four piece, the guitar and bass always snaking around each other instead of simply doubling each other’s parts and creating the impression of considerably more musicians than are actually present. Aisling’s piano fills everything out with grandeur, and when Sans Froid go full tilt, as on the wall of sound at the end of Pros & Constants, it sounds enormous. Still Thinking is a more contemplative piece that’s hushed and patient, and the title track Back into the Womb features a proper proggy freak out. Sorbet is driven by the piano, using eerie floating chords that carry the strange uncanny quality of Radiohead’s Pyramid Song, Menorabilia holds an intense groove before escalating into winding, tumbling riffs whilst Bags Packed is spacious and swaying.

All of this fits into thirty five minutes with every song running to around three and a half instead of seven minute meandering jams. Back into the Womb is a prog album that respects your time. The lineage of this music predates punk, when complexity and craft weren’t considered indulgent, but prog rock was what serious musicians did. Sans Froid sound too unique to feel like part of any modern movement, and that’s to their credit. The wall of sound they produce through the density of their writing is enormous, with all four musicians doing interesting things at once and the piano doing more than a second guitarist ever could.

Aisling’s voice is so easy to connect with that this record could appeal to a much bigger audience than its niche genre tags might suggest. The songs themselves are exceptional, and Back into the Womb is a real gem for music devourers who are constantly on the hunt for something special. The Exploiter of Art is the album’s pointed conclusion, a frantic, urgent highlight built on strange time signatures about the corrosive effect of capitalism not just on art but on human existence itself. This theme has been running through the whole record, and here it crystallises in the final repetition of the chorus as the band drops out entirely and gives Aisling the space to belt on her own.

Back into the Womb is probably too complicated and strange to be truly mass appeal, but if you’re the kind of person who devours records hunting for exceptional music, then Sans Froid deserve your time outside of any stylistic enclave or specific genre descriptor. The songs are three and a half minutes instead of obtuse chin-stroking exercises in complexity, and would fit quite neatly on a daytime 6Music playlist without anyone batting an eyelid, which is a difficult thing to achieve with musical DNA this complicated.

The history of prog rock is littered with records that are impressive without being moving. Back into the Womb is a prog record that communicates real emotion and ideas through swirling and complicated music that doesn’t mistake complexity for depth.