It’s been a slow reveal. Five years since the last album and two years since the tantalising/titillating release of old singles/advance tracks ‘Caravan’ and ‘BU2B’, we finally have the complete horological assembly. And on the basis of familiarity breeding content it is the aforementioned tracks that open the album and set the tone. Forceful drumming spars with upfront bass and soaring melodies, establishing a warmth and proto metal edge that is turned inside-out. The propulsive groove and power of ‘Caravan’ is complexity rendered foot-tappingly accessible as Lee warbles, “In a world where I feel so small I can’t stop thinking big”. It could serve as a Rush manifesto. ‘The Anarchist’ sees Alex Liefson disappear down aural wormholes and stretch sonic radiance across black holes.
In short, this album is so alive with ideas it is intoxicating. The bewildering range of moods and textures render the epic and abstract intimate. Case in point, the track ‘Seven Cities Of Gold’. Its gnarled and twisted intro gives way to an expansive soaring riff of conquest before descending into darkness and doubt: not a showy psychedelic trip but an inwardly burrowing sense of disorientation that has the listener on the cusp of grasping sense, only to have the knowingly strange supplant it. Similarly, ‘Headlong Flight’ is the dash of the white rabbit, pocket-watch watching, careering madly through a poetic maze of slowly forming and rapidly dissolving vertiginous vistas. This is an other-worldly album, exploring sounds yet undiscovered and redesigning the cosmic order. Thrilling.