THE CONGREGATION

In this album we see Leprous fully embrace their new digitized soundscapes, complete with an even greater emphasis on vocals driving each song - including literally being featured as the forefront sound through the audio mixing. Influences of Radiohead, and Porcupine Tree are seen more here than any album to date of this review. For my tastes in music, in this time, it doesn't get much better than Leprous and the mix of styles they've incorporated into this album. The subtleties this band is able to produce just impresses me to no end. The classical, jazz, and chamber influences found here are more ever-present than any past releases. We have keys, drums, guitars all playing off one another with not minimalist but minimal trickles of sound layered on incredibly intricate patterns and structures, layered underneath the ever present vocals driving it all. The sound may be more accessible than ever because of this layered approach. Its' designed in such a way that a casual listener would pick up the insanely catchy vocals, maybe a guitar riff here or there, and be perfectly satisfied with that - but then dig deeper with a musical ear and you'll catch the hi-hat para-diddle 16th note patterns of the drums matching the bass guitar down to the syncopation and accented notes, all the while the vocals freely flowing around this, for example. It is in this layering of sounds Leprous has grabbed me as a fan. They didn't even bother with this in 'Tall Poppy', didn't try hard enough in 'Bi-Lateral', and only began to truly believe in themselves as a band to make the transition to such compositions in 'Coal'.