✦✦✧✧ Merry Christmas! I got you a present… assuming of course that you are a fan of cacophonous, shrill, self-indulgent lunacy. Liturgy’s avant-black-metal is tempered here with digital frippery and all manner of orchestral instruments (sampled or otherwise) that have no business near an amplifier. This album is just begging me to give it a 1-star review.

★★☆☆ This album comes from an alternate reality wherein 70s prog rock blossomed forty years later than it did here. The resulting hodgepodge has as much in common with Camel, Bill Laswell, and Barber’s Adagio For Strings as it does with Emperor. It’s a fascinating listen, marred by a difficult production aesthetic and an over-reliance on the glacial crescendo.