Engineers: Always Returning

Fourth album from the Liverpudlian dream poppers.

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

Engineers’ first three LPs were trotted out one year after another. Always Returning, however, took three years, so it’s perhaps fitting that its appeal is a slow-burning one, revealing hidden depths and melodic prowess with every listen.

Much of what you hear is spacey – think the ‘ahhhhh’ instrumentals of 10cc’s I’m Not In Love – but within this soothing canvas lie sharper progressive tools, notably in the jerkier art-rock notes of Innsbruck. Mainman Mark Peters is in thrall of lovely chords and beatific swathes, using ’70s processors and live drums to create an effect that marries old school electronica, proggy progressions and an ambient vibe – not to mention minimal, but evocative, organic instrumental lines. Accordingly, the bounce of A Million Voices carries a certain Midge Ure-evoking eclecticism. Things take a more upbeat turn in the likes of Searching For Answers, while classic rock guitar lines weave into the ethereal shoegaze of Smiling Back. The blissful base may threaten to lose its impact in driftier moments, but Always Returning knows when to hook you back in with a stirring shade or shift. A truly immersive record. Polly Glass

Polly Glass
Deputy Editor, Classic Rock

Polly is deputy editor at Classic Rock magazine, where she writes and commissions regular pieces and longer reads (including new band coverage), and has interviewed rock's biggest and newest names. She also contributes to Louder, Prog and Metal Hammer and talks about songs on the 20 Minute Club podcast. Elsewhere she's had work published in The Musician, delicious. magazine and others, and written biographies for various album campaigns. In a previous life as a women's magazine junior she interviewed Tracey Emin and Lily James – and wangled Rival Sons into the arts pages. In her spare time she writes fiction and cooks.