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"The Cinematic Orchestra likes to take its time. Led by founder Jason Swinscoe and longtime collaborator Dominic Smith, the London outfit’s catalog stands at just four studio albums in 20 years, with To Believe their first in 12. Their discography is rounded out by a pair of far-flung soundtracks, one for Dziga Vertov’s 1929 silent masterwork Man with a Movie Camera and, in 2008, another for the Walt Disney documentary The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos. Those detours make sense for the duo—the three studio albums surrounding the scores are equally full of plush movie jazz. The studio albums’ best moments still astonish—the way the opening stalker’s bass line that kicks off “Durian” on their 1999 debut is cut just short with an abrupt hard edit before it loops back around; or the billowing arrangement that fans out from the center of the ten-minute “Burn Out,” from 2002’s Every Day."

Far from settling into a well-heeled rut, the best moments on To Believe are even more opulent than the Cinematic Orchestra’s earlier work. Built, vaguely, around the titular theme (belief, that is), the album has its ponderous moments, but the group makes them work in context. Roots Manuva intoning strenuously on “A Caged Bird/Imitations of Life” by itself would be an iffy proposition. But here, with the strings like sunlight glinting through the window at sunset? Yes, please." - Bandcamp Daily

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