Having gone a decade between 2010’s ‘Hammer and Anvil’ and ‘Eupnea’ in 2020, Pure Reason Revolution seem to have hit a creative flow to deliver their fifth full-length album just two years later. ‘Above Cirrus’ finds the band drawing on a range of genres and styles, which the three singles already lifted from the album showcase. Of note, they reference Tool and Filter, and this is reflected in the heavier segments.
They come charging on like they mean serious business with ‘Our Prism’, driven by some propulsive percussion and solid riffery. It’s remarkably succinct and tightly structured; in contrast, the second track, ‘New Kind of Evil’ slows the tempo and ups the reflective mood, with the vocal melody leading initially.
‘Phantoms’ – another short, punchy song – goes for a more electronic sound, and with a harder edge, too, making it more Nine Inch Nails than Anything more gentle: PRR are on fire, and once again, a barrage off drums blast the song along at pace.
There seem to be two distinct categories of song on the album – short, dynamic, rocky, and long, slower, more melodic, although the ten-minute epic ‘Screaming Sideways’ transitions effortlessly from the latter into the former, building form an almost choral vibe – what you might even call ‘churchiness’ – into an expansive space-rock workout that shows precisely why Rik Wakeman digs them. It’s a masterful piece of bold pomp prog. Things power up again on ‘Dead Butterfly’, which contrasts a soft, melodic verse with a lumbering riff-based bridge after the chorus and a facemelting climactic finish, and paves the way for the uplifting finale of ‘Lucid’.
Lyrically, it’s pretty dark, and robotic spoken word narrative provides a connecting thread through the album, featuring on a number of tracks, notably through ‘Our Prism’, ‘Dead Butterfly’, and ‘Cruel Deliverance’, and if at times it perhaps feels somewhat dated, it works in context, threading it together without binding as a ‘concept album’, which it isn’t as the band are keen to point out. What it is, is a journey, and one with a widely varied landscape and much to take in along the way.
