The Take Off and Landing of Everything

The album was first called All at Once, then Carry Her, Carry Me after a line in The Blanket of Night, before the band settled on a track title. The first two weeks of sessions were at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in November 2012, and the rest at Blueprint in Salford. For the first time the songs were not written together. Craig Potter led Real Life (Angel), Mark Potter wrote and recorded Honey Sun at home, Pete Turner composed Colour Fields on an iPad, and Turner, Mark Potter and Richard Jupp made Fly Boy Blue/Lunette without the others. On the advice of an Abbey Road engineer the parts were also recorded separately.

Garvey split from the writer Emma Jane Unsworth during the making and revised lyrics as a result. She suggested the title My Sad Captains, from Antony and Cleopatra, and New York Morning was adapted from a diary entry about a trip to the city. The Blanket of Night is about a refugee couple crossing by boat, and the Hallé Orchestra played strings on Charge, Real Life (Angel) and Honey Sun. It debuted at number one in the UK and averages 80 on Metacritic from 28 reviews. The Telegraph gave it five stars and Pitchfork's Jason Heller gave it 6.2.