✦✧✧✧ I tried to listen to the new Leprous album (after not hearing any of their last few). My god, it’s fucking awful! I barely made it through half. Not even is it not metal, it is… I don’t know what the hell it is! Not even prog rock. Maybe vaguely in the vein of moodier stuff by bands like Marillion or Talk Talk, but not proggy either, and with vocals that are so ridiculously over the top falsetto that they sound like Justin Hawkins from the Darkness, but without any hint of irony.

★★★☆ While perhaps not as bold a transition as the ones we heard going into the band’s last two albums, this is nevertheless a fully-realized and utterly different take on prog metal, more “Coal” than “Bilateral” but with hints of both. Einar Solberg’s vocals take on more of a prominent role here, but the rest of the band are also tireless in their performances.