Progressive metal. Fourth release from this Atlanta based band, and it's definitely worth checking out. Overall the songs sound very dark and melodic. The band never really rocks very hard. They just maintain this mid-tempo churn mode and frequently change time signatures. There's plenty of classic rock guitar riffs around to make all metalheads happy for sure... Their guitarists definitely kick some serious ass. My only complaint has to do with the vocals: this time the singers actually try to sing instead of grunt, and it doesn't quite work. The album's concept is supposedly about this kid who experiments with space travel and ends up being sucked by a wormhole and entering the body of Rasputin who has just been murdered after trying to usurp the Czar... Go figure! Title is a reference to the drummer's teenage sister Skye who committed suicide aged 14. For fans of Sabbath, Pantera, Tool, Neurosis, Lamb Of God, hell even System Of A Down.

Picks: 2,4,6 *** No FCCs ***

1. dark and doomy intro song, very nu-metal sounding
*2. banjo intro (!), gets nice and heavy, hell yeah! headbangers ball!
3. lots of time signature changes, very melodic guitar riffs
*4. epic! intro synth sound reminiscent of maybe Hawkwind, moves into this sort of murder ballad, which then gets really heavy a la Tool maybe... the album's centerpiece...
5. percussive sound intro gets into this mathy prog metal song
*6. acoustic intro, very melodic, gets heavy with double bass drums and heavy riffage. guest vocals by Scott Kelly from Neurosis, which sound really good.
7. longest track. starts slow and doomed out and evolves into this epic, grandiose, operatoc affair a la System Of A Down