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Dutch septet Personal Trainer are all kinds of unique. They return this year with a new signing – and a new chapter.

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The plucky pop pickings of Personal Trainer have been creating quite a stir as of late. The beaming choruses have traits of Weezer while the horns veer perhaps more towards the post-punk curiosities of Black Country. Either way, it’s your favourite indie rock met with a beefy bravado of stage leaders who are opting for something a little more… left.

With their music opting more for the alternative airwaves, Personal Trainers’ following has been steady and subtle. Just like how BBC 6Music likes them, so of course they’ve dug their claws in to the band and has subsequently followed a boasting of festival appearances including SXSW, End of the Road and Best Kept Secret. All festivals that eat up the type of post-punk oddities the seven serve up.

Now, they return two years after their debut Big Love Blanket with the long awaited follow-up Still Willing. It’s certainly less rugged, less feisty as far as amble rock n rollers go. But what it lacks in tenacity, it makes it up in heaps of cleverly-woven quality.

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Every song seems to start with an empty canvas and the group begin to hurl every palette at it, it’s a fantastic listen on the first attempt. I mean, look at Intangible. The swathing indie guitars blast us back to Franz Ferdinand’s 2000s, the horn outburst makes for a wonderful elevation, before we’re thrown back into that heinous Moog synth line that reminds me of Anarchic System’s Popcorn just a little bit too much.

One thing is for sure, though – there’s no filler here at all. Every song on Still Willing stands tall and proud by its own accord and deliverance. The self-titled track on the album sums up their new direction best. A reserved new sequence but rest-assured in their ways. This is a band who know what they’re doing.