When sleepmakeswaves entered LaCueva studio in Byron Bay with producer Nick DiDia (Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam), the instrumental post-rock outfit’s goal was to make their second album a more positive, upbeat record than 2011 debut ...And So We Destroyed Everything. Inspired in part by the arrival of powerhouse drummer Tim Adderley, they were also determined to capture the intensity of their live show while creating a clutch of songs that would work well in that environment. Enter energetic openers “Perfect Detonator” and “Traced in Constellations”, colossal rock songs that introduce a more pronounced electronic element to the band’s repertoire while staying true to the Sydney outfit’s trademark mix of epic, intertwining guitar work and cinematic command of dynamics. The eight-and-a-half-minute centrepiece, “Emergent”, takes its name from a scientific and philosophical theory about the evolution of life, matter and thought called “emergence”, a fitting moniker for a song that evolves through a complex web of moods and musical ideas. The LP is not a singularly positive affair—witness the dark, aggressive “The Stars Are Stigmata”—but it is rarely less than spectacular.