What do you do when the world’s falling apart? Take to the streets? Run to the hills? The latest album by this British folk-rock quartet suggests that a blend of fantasy and realism can provide a better way of living.

Their best-known member, Richard Dawson, addresses Facebook-dwelling flag-fiends on Dead in a Post-Truth World – “the mythical country you claim allegiance of is gone / It was never here” – his grave tone offset by Rhodri Dawson’s Welsh taunts in a nursery-rhyme melody. Between the euphoric singalong choruses of Scales Will Fall, Dawn Bothwell delivers what she calls “bard rap” – a steady vocal flow somewhere between spoken word and hip-hop – to decry capitalism and celebrate grassroots resistance. Another stunning, whirling chorus led by Sally Pilkington sits at the heart of End of the Rhythm, a spirited jig that lays out a manifesto for collective action. That collectivism is in the music itself: ragged yet richly populated arrangements of guitars, sax, trumpet and more, with plenty of guests (including children on flute and vocals).

But as well as the placard slogans, there is fantastical bucolic storytelling, about a steadfast horse called Clara, a meeting of spirits at a millpond on the awe-inspiring 20-minute song Clear Pools, and the psychedelic doom-vision of Land of the Dead, the latter delivered in Davies’s gorgeous Welsh poetry. These, crucially, don’t feel escapist, but are part of the album’s shouldn’t-be-radical political vision, where idealism, principle and the natural world are intertwined.