THE lanterns on the lake are growing less luminescent. The North Easterners burrowed away in isolation in their Newcastle studio, out of the glare of sunlight, crafting a gothic, introverted, even claustrophobic third album, produced and mixed by guitarist Paul Gregory to keep it even more in-house.

Bella Union is a rarity among modern-day labels, allowing a band to grow and express itself unimpeded and the reward is a set of emotionally raw songs of desolation, desperation and desire for new hope.

"At its darkest points, we wanted it to feel like you’d dived into the deepest part our dreams and were taking a look around. At its lightest we wanted it to feel like you were coming up for air,” says singer Hazel Wilde. Of Dust And Matter is seriously sinister; Faultlines is a menacingly melancholic political call for austerity to end.

Yet gloom is not all; love and community matter too, and so the sun will still rise on the lake tomorrow.