✦✦✧✧ This is a frustrating mixed bag of an album, with passages of satisfying crunch tempered by synthpop-informed atmospherics and no real consideration for flow or momentum. Holocene is dogged by a pervasive feeling of building up for a climactic payoff that never comes.

✦✦✦✧ This is definitely my preferred portion of the now collective 3 hours that make up the Phanerozoic suite. Seemingly more deliberate than Phanerozoic I: Palaezoic, Messrs. Staps et al find novel ways to express their creativity without sacrificing coherence or ferocity. Definitely listen to the whole album, as it looks to map the passage of geologic time, lyrically and musically, over a span of 250 million years… with accompanying genre shifts along the way. 

✦✦✧✧ While I applaud Robin Staps and his voracious creativity, this time around the result feels less focused and enthralling. The music starts out in solidly familiar territory, but then veers into post-metal, sounding at times like Deftones and A Perfect Circle. You would think this would be a good thing; I’m just not sure it is.