7/10

Since first emerging with their highly-praised debut album 'A Dream Outside' in 2015, London-based indie-rockers Gengahr have found themselves in that unenviable position of being a critically-successful outfit but still working the fringes of their scene from a commercial perspective. Their follow-up record 'Where Wildness Grows' in 2018 was a stronger and more inventive affair, but still not enough to grant them the attention they deserve. So with an almost go-for-broke attitude on this new release, 'Sanctuary' looks to tear up the rulebook on their work to date and return with something far more progressive and ambitious than we have heard before.

Recruiting Jack Steadman of Bombay Bicycle Club as producer on this album has certainly been received with a strong dose of abstract ideas and sees the band almost reinvent themselves through a lens of more psychedelic and euphoric aesthetics. From the start, it seems that the band are keen to leave their structured indie dynamics behind them and pursue a more explorative avenue, keeping them in the same lane as Everything Everything and Glass Animals, and resulting in a fresh and interesting collection that will hopefully see many take them as more than just another indie band.

While they still seem to be getting a grip on this new direction, there is plenty to get yourself stuck into on this new collection. 'Sanctuary' may be a brave step into the unknown for Gengahr, but they wear these colours well and show that they are more than capable of delivering some wonderfully stunning moments.