Review by Adam M on July 12, 2018.

This album gets off to a very catchy start with Seekers of the Truth and continues brining the good stuff forth throughout.  Though I was impressed with their previous release, the band really find their footing and puts out a really consistently enjoyable release of music.  The music here is progressive, but it is also forward thinking in other ways beyond the generic subtag. 

This is really innovative stuff and it performed with much energy and drive.  Indeed, it seems the band is having fun performing these songs and it adds to them.  The songs are twisting and changing and develop into interesting directions at all times.  The vocals are clean for the most part and accentuate the tracks nicely.  The guitars are driving and push the songs in the interesting directions they traverse in.  Drums add the filling to the remainder of the chocolate cake.  The overall instrumentation is compelling and constantly shifting into different directions.  Alas, the album isn’t perfect and is still overtaken by some of the stronger releases by innovative stalwarts like Soen and Tool.  In Vain still manages to dig their own direction that is different enough from those outfits to be wholly worthwhile.

I saw a comparison of the band to Borknagar and this is fairly accurate as there is a black metal aspect to the band.  Really, they don’t sound like any particular band completely, however.  The sound comes across as streamlined, yet interesting and never fails to raise an eyebrow.  This album is probably one of the more worthy progressive releases of the year and takes its seat in the upper echelon of this year’s releases.  If the band had pushed the enveloppe even more, Currents might be even higher on my best of the year list, as it stnads it is a thoughtful release of progressive music. 

Rating: 7.8 out of 10