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Funny somebody makes a thread on this, because I swear, i've been listening to this album around 5 times a week now for the past month. I remember when this album came out I used to listen to With This Heart daily, and for reasons, it holds a very special place in my heart. However, I widely ignored the rest of the album. I was very excited about the Absence of Presence when it came out and enjoyed it quite a bit for a while. However, when I revisited the Prelude Implicit I really hit me how much that album blows the new one out of the water. The Prelude Implicit is a fantastic modern prog album, not only from a production standpoint (which Absence really lacks in, super compressed and loud), but its extremely impressive that as you said, these prog veterans are actually progressing in their sound and holding their own among their younger contemporaries rather than ride the waves of nostalgia. Ronnie Platt has such a beautiful and powerful voice and everyone just sounds full of passion and inspiration. With This Heart is one of my favorite songs ever made, Visibility Zero is amazing, sort of reminds me of Rush and once again, one hell of a vocal performance. Rhythm in the Spirit is such a unique song, love the nasty heavy riffage and jam in the song. The Voyage of Eight Eighteen is brilliant and super symphonic. Camouflage is super heavy and brooding, bordering on prog metal. I love the windy riffage and Billy Greer vocals in Summer and Crowded Isolation is an awesome and very driving song.
I think this album has aged really well and packs a ton of replay value. I have to admit, I found this one to be more of a grower/slowburn, one that gets better with familiarity. I hold it in nearly the same echelon as their best 70s output. It's different, but that's its number one strength.
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The sun has left the sky...
...Now you can close your eyes
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