After the resounding success of their album “Promised Land,” which reached the UK Top 20, The Karma Effect returns with “Cruel Intentions,” their third album, the most accomplished and clear-cut culmination of their ambitions to date: sharper, more powerful, heavier, and with a jubilant intensity. Exploring love, desire, and danger with dark passion and flashes of insolence, the tracks blend confidence and wit. Their approach? A “modern vintage,” a desire to elevate the retro sounds that shaped their childhood into something resolutely contemporary. “We want to be a stadium rock band,” says Henry. “Every concert has to be grand, like a show designed for the biggest stages.”