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Be it the mournful fingerpicking and gentle swell of strings which bring to mind Nick Drake on Broken Time; the wide open guitarscapes of Leave, perhaps the song that falls closest to the point Smith’s bandmates might have taken it; or Lost Souls, in which Smith’s disembodied voice pings from left to right, adding a playful counterpoint to the main vocal. “It took a bit of manipulation to find the right mood for that one,” says the singer. “Me and Iain took it down one alleyway, but it was a bit too chipper. We were moving the structure of it around, and I repeated the line: lost soul in me. We said to each other, Shall we leave that in? I really like where it takes it, it feels like something Spiritualized might have done.” It’s typical of the creative partnership Smith and Archer developed in the studio together, nudging, pulling and leading the songs in different directions until they found their natural home.

“After saying I needed to be less collaborative, I ended up being much more collaborative than I expected to be!” laughs Smith. “I guess I just needed the right collaboration. Sometimes you have these moments where things click into focus and you understand where you’re going.”