Awful, emotionless vocals immediately put you off. I don't even know, if they just plain emotionless or they sit so bad in the mix. First two songs leave me in strange feeling, that I just don't get something. People are talking about great vocals here, but I hear only barely understandable tasteful voices. Susie Bogdanovich does not help it all. I've read so many positive things about her performance, but hey: absolutely flat voice an no emotions whatsoever. The mixing makes words unrecognizable sometimes - why the hell do vocal sit so low in the mix? It is the most crucial part of the music. 

Time passes by, and after two songs I just don't care.

Third song, "No Man's Land" is the longest track, it has to be awesome (by unwritten prog rules), right? Nah, we have 3 (!) minutes of simple guitar arpeggios at the beginning of the track before something interesting starts to happen. And that interesting is not bright enough, to my taste, however, it is the best portion of the track, before vocals kick in and it goes all to hell. And what is that awful heavily processed low unintelligible burping voice at the end of the song? WTF is that voice? What is it? The music at this section is just uninteresting chord progression with organ over it... and burping. Yeah, that makes a great listen,sure... Is that what I should hum like an ear-candy of this album?

Another example of strangely vocals, is the washed out vocals of Susie in the "Rapturo". I don't understand neither words, no production decisions for that. If you were trying to make album with such great cover artwork awful - you've succeeded. I cannot believe such good artwork can hide such bad music.

None of the vocal melodies even have some kind of enjoyable motifs, that I could hum afterwards! There is nothing for my mind to sit on here, it's just plain suffering. And it is not that I did not give the album time to grow on me - I listened to it more than 5 times in order to get things figure out and realize why I did not like the album at all. I had no success. It is still a mystery to me. The album has no memorable melodies, no inspiring motifs, no interesting structures, no pleasant vocals and no emotions. All the good instruments are there, but somehow it all just misses. It is not enough to jam on vintage instruments over some simple chord progressions and call it one of the best 2016 prog outputs. Something has to stick, to click, something has to be freaking awesome, it has to have dynamic, make my feet and hands move according to music, hum and sing along!

All of the above is so obvious when I listen to this album after just released Neal Morse Band's "The Similitude of a Dream" - there I get all of the things I miss from GH release: such great, sticky melodies, awesome use of instruments, inventive solos and arrangement, great vocals (not the greatest, but all of them sound good and pleasant, and the melodies do the rest), memorable material, and music that breathes and lives.

"Valkyrie" sounds like dead music with vintage instruments with absolutely terrible vocals lacking any emotions, lacking any good melodies and motifs. It is just some notes over some chords with awesome instruments. And those vocals.

Somebody, please, explain to me what am I missing? How am I hearing this completely different album, that everyone is enjoying here on Progarchives and all over the internet.

PS Of course, after 5 listens I can appreciate some music on this album, but it still nothing compared to what other bands do. I honestly hope other albums are better. And I hope other people participate in vocals, because it is the weakest part of the album. 

Positive side of this album: "Nexus Girl" is more or less interesting, compared to other tracks. And "Eucatastrophe" is pleasant sounding. The end of "Eucatastrophe" still has only organ rolls and no actual singable melody.

PSS I liked "Lex Rex" and the vocal was OK, with absolutely awesome track there "Centurion" and good  "Tales of the great wars" and many other pleasant, though not always super memorable songs. I even don't mind "Chromometree", though it also feel like generic prog-material with no bright melodies, but, man, at least vocals are good there - I can hear them, I am not put off by them, and I can understand the words.

I would appreciate if somebody could take examples from my post above and give a different perspective on them. Because, for some reasons, I really want to get this album.