The moment a band chops off its keyboards feels like someone deleting the autopilot system in mid-flight and saying, “Hold on tight, we’re going manual now”. That is precisely what Led Bib does with Hotel Pupik - their first album as a quartet without keyboards, a reinvention that somehow still sounds unmistakably Led Bib.

The lineup - Pete Grogan and Chris Williams on saxophones (and effects), Liran Donin on bass and effects, and Mark Holub on drums - locks in with a razor wire rhythm section, but now the space above them is wide open and raw. With the keyboard removed you’d think a band might feel lost, but instead Led Bib uses absence as effect: no keys means more air, sharper attack, more exposed edges.

Recorded over five days in the Austrian countryside (Hotel Pupik itself, oddly enough), the group takes advantage of the weathered barn-studio to allow improvisation and composition to intertwine. The longest cut, the title track, flows like a free-improvised journey across machinery and memory: parts feel spontaneous, others tightly composed, and they blur into one another until you forget which is which.

It’s a record that mixes motorik drive, punky urgency and jazz improvisation with an ear toward melody and cultural influences beyond the UK scene. One hears the rhythmic pulse of prog, the rawness of post-punk horns, and the cohesion of players who’ve spent decades together. Critics note that the mood is both more mature and more reflective than some earlier Led Bib material.

Humour smiles around the edges: a saxophone duel that sounds like two ancient transmitters arguing about whether Mars or Jupiter has better cafés; a bassline that divides into existential hesitation; a drum pattern that refuses to answer your phone because it’s busy reinventing the locomotive. But the kaleidoscope of sound never feels decorative - it’s sharpened craft.

If you’ve known Led Bib as a “dangerous music” project (their own descriptor) you’ll find Hotel Pupik still dangerous - but less ragged, more considered. The absence of keyboards doesn’t diminish their voice, it reveals a new silhouette. The band bills this as a reassessment of what they are in 2025, and you can hear that: a band asking “What now?” instead of “What again?”.

For listeners ready to dive into the edge where jazz, rock, improv and post-punk sometime meet and grind-the record offers a vivid ride. And for those who like narrative arcs, it doesn’t spell one out for you. Instead, it hands you the run-down facility and says: here’s your boarding pass, you’re cleared for takeoff. Silence the autopilot.