✦✦✧✧ Oh yeah, I totally forgot about this awaited sequel to 2014’s Phase I. All the various bits of the Scar Symmetry sonic palette are here, as are elements from almost any other Swedish melodeath band I can think of. That’s really my main complaint here: too much stuff, all very familiar, crammed together into a needlessly long runtime.

★★☆☆ Take the Scar Symmetry you think you knew, and randomly add J-Pop, Meshuggah, and EDM to the mix. This works more often than you’d think, and at its best the album is a bona fide headnodder. But these changes happen mid-song, making it difficult to get into a real groove with the album.