Daughter are not the easiest band to place geographically or musically. The London trio all live in different cities now, and their sound has slowly mutated since their bleakly brilliant debut, If You Leave, in 2013. Their comfort zone remains moody indie folk rock, somewhere on the road between forgotten 4AD trailblazers Pale Saints and the Cure’s stadium shoegaze. Yet after seven years away, guitarist Igor Haefeli, drummer Remi Aguilella and singer Elena Tonra have assembled a bigger, brighter third album that lands closer to mainstream pop than they’ve ever dared before.

“I’ll never tell you anything real,” Tonra threatens on Swim Back, then spends 45 minutes spilling the tea. Her singing is excellent throughout, whether coolly confident on Be On Your Way’s account of letting a long-distance relationship lapse, or glassy and slightly numbed during Party’s hymn to hard-won sobriety. It takes a while to absorb how cleverly arranged songs such as Junkmail and Future Lover are, as 12 Ensemble’s delicate string orchestration adorns robust performances from Haefeli and Aguilella. In a month when Lana Del Rey’s bruised balladeering proves that idiosyncratic rock can still top the charts, Daughter have picked a good time to reappear.