Over two decades have been and gone since the first LP came out from the  brothers Salim and Faris Nourallah, and a lot has been going on personally in that time.

However, music is one of the great healers and now, in 2026, they’ve reunited in more ways than one, and we have the ‘Calling Manila’ album which tries to untangle the knotty mess of family and rekindling.

The untidiness of emotion, is channelled through music that has numerous touchstones, from Fab Four pop, to scratchy Americana.

The album really lifts on tracks like ‘I’m Alive’, which straddles Arthur Lee-ish baroque popsike, with echoes of early Zombies, but stripped down and immediate. ‘Italian Fantasy’ pushes the baroque pop edge even further, with plaintive strings swirling around world weary vocals.

When the album isn’t doffing a cap to psychedelic records, there’s echoes of the TexMex music of, say, Calexico with lonesome border town brass accompanying picked tales of yearning and woe.

Elsewhere, tracks like ‘Where Do We Go?’ and ‘Moscow to Mars’ have a homespun alt folk quality, where the songs are laid most bare. Altogether, it’s a record filled with reflections and meditations, beat up yearning and bittersweet humour.

A hugely atmospheric album that’ll appeal to the loner folk and alt.country fans alike.

The album is out now.