Manchester’s Last Harbour evoke both the sorrow of Joy Division and the world-weary outlook of Nick Cave. There’s also something of The National in their careful creation of sprawling expanses of sound. On previous releases the band have tended to steer clear of using effects, merely using multiple instruments to convey elongated backdrops on which to weave their tales of despair. Here, however, the band together with Richard Formby (Spacemen 3, Herman Dune) have spiced things up in the studio, clutching at individual sounds and lifting them to chime and echo, creating a real sense of space.Divided into quarters, Volo proves itself to be an album that, unusually, you can dip in and out of. The spoken French introductions have helpfully provided exits from the usual impenetrable slab that Last Harbour drop on us. Having said that, Kevin Craig’s Cave-esque vocal still coats everything in gloom; it drips from his descending cadence, oozes from his throaty delivery and pours forth from the whistled hiss as he elongates his plurals. The dying violin on ‘All My Triumphs Are Written In Your Hand’ skilfully supplements his lamenting lyric “It’s a good thing that you understand / That I’m a jealous man” gifting the words such a cutting edge that you fear he may have drawn blood.Glimpses of the light are rare - a cowboy guitar twang and a raft of trumpets on the ‘The Loom’ as well as the twinkling guitar picking on ‘Don’t Fall’, reminding me instantly of The Icicle Works, are the only partial breaks in the cloud. If you find yourself scanning for others you’re obviously in the wrong place. The architecture here has been designed to be oppressive. Instead, by focussing on the patterns we find a magnificently-crafted canter and swell to ‘The Fever’, and yet a spidery creep to ‘If They’re Right’ before it explodes into the chorus and ghosts away into a graveyard mist.Overall, the slower material can feel achingly drawn and often with so much room into which to manoeuvre, it often craves momentum. The darker, slightly faster rhythms on tracks like the aforementioned ’The Fever’ and ’Lights’ are where the real beauty of this album lies. It’s a sickly-looking beast, but look in the right places and, given a little attention, even this bleak, funereal pop can enlighten.