#2 in the midweek album chart behind only Ed Sheeran..

 

title track is quite a swerve for him being a beautiful ambient electronica piece,

 

I see there's some of his usual prog rock stuff on the album too but not listened to it yet

The collab with Nina Tayeb is amazing

I've only heard the album once, it was solid and consistent all the way through but nothing really stood out. That might change after further listens.

 

The video for the title track is quite mesmerising.

I didn't get around to listening to his last album as I wasn't crazy about the singles but enjoyed the ones from this album a lot more so given this a go and very glad I did, I think this is up there with AOTY contenders for me :wub: Feels like almost every song has its own unique identity and I don't think any of them fall flat for me, 'What Life Brings' and 'Time Is Running Out' are probably the least essential songs on there but still really like both of them. 'Impossible Tightrope' is my biggest standout (absolutely love the manic jazzy sections) and also kind of stanning 'Actual Brutal Facts', true to my usual bias of anything with a post-punky guitar riff appealing to me but also Steven is a shockingly quite competent rapper which I was not expecting *_* the title track is certainly a standout as well (there's actually a few tracks that are electronic / synth heavy so it's not too much of a sore thumb although definitely the most ambient song on there) as are 'Inclination' (the percussion :cheeseblock:), 'Rock Bottom' (always good to see Ninet showing up), 'Economies Of Scale' and 'Staircase', so basically most of the album lol

 

Kinda sad this narrowly lost out to Jorja's underwhelming album in the race to match his highest peaking solo album but nevermind, yay for another top 5 ~

Some decent stuff here like 'What Life Brings' (reminds me of some 2000's Opeth) and 'Impossible Tightrope'.

 

I think this is a little more memorable than Porcupine Tree's album last year.

Edited October 10, 20231 yr by All★bySmashMouth