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This is the second album from Norwegian band Leprous, a band made up of guys who all seem to have some vague connection to Emperor, as vocalist Einar Solberg was a touring key player for Emperor, and two other members have done time in Ihsahn's live band. If you expect this to sound anything like Emperor, you would be wrong, but if you expect a rough similarity to Ihsahn's loopy post-rock solo work, you wouldn't be.

I have a short tolerance for prog, and while good progressive music can really wow me, I have little patience for wanking or jittery, ADD songwriting, and this album is full of all the things about prog that suck. The songs are twittery and masturbatory slices of drawn-out post-rock with overworked melodies, annoying time shifts, and vocals that are really, really bad. Solberg is not a bad singer per se, but stylistically he can't stop whispering, honking, screeching, and employing a notably bad falsetto. If he was just singing he'd probably sound fine, but he overworks the vocal lines as much as the band is overworking every line of music. This album makes me wish there was anti-spaz medication I could administer via space laser.