new musical direction, they enlisted several guest musicians for Croftwork, and recorded it in 2005 at Phat Controller Productions in Roag, Isle of Skye, with co-production between the band's longtime production duo of Calum MacLean and the band's percussionist Iain Copeland. The album was mastered by Denis Blackham of Skye Mastering. The band announced the album in 2005. Music Musical style Croftwork was described by its press-hand out as "everything you've ever heard from the band in the past with a distinctly new sound for now" and by the band's website as "their most ambitious and dynamic offering to date." The "ambitious" and "dynamic" album is characterised by its "rich and varied instrumental maelstrom" and has been described as "slicker, funkier, harder hitting, and slightly less chaotic" than previous albums by the band. fRoots commented that the "unapologetic" album runs "from hi-tech drizzle reeling to plaintive electronic airs." Luxury Web Magazine said the album displays "a sound that is rock, Celtic and jazz" and commented that "energy is the key to this release, and you feel it throughout all the tracks and through all the instruments." Unlike previous albums, Croftwork introduces a prominent small brass section to the band, that of The Wayward Boys, a duo from Kilmarie consisting of Rick Taylor and Nigel Hitchcock, who play trombone and saxophone. InSuffolk.com noticed the brass instruments seemed to introduce a jazz element to the band's sound. When asked if "that was intentional or something which happened organically", the band's bassist and sometime percussionist Innes Hutton said the band "have never considered the brass lines as jazz really", adding that "jazz is another beast entirely" and that they "were looking for added texture and dynamic from them and hopefully [the band] achieved that." Reviewer David Kidman also acknowledged the band "added the sound of brass to the mix with a mini-horn-section (trombone and sax) spicing up the already pretty full group sound, and to bristlingly good effect", highlighting title track as being a good example, "which is boldly heralded in by what might be a radio news call-sign and then pursues its quarry in the style of a contemporary Scottish-set crime-action-movie soundtrack complete with exotic touches of instrumentation and cinematically lush textures." The track has eerie, darkly hypnotic contributions from pipes & a fiddle, and has been compared to the work of Martyn Bennett. Tracks The album's opening track, "Scots on the