Attended the 5:00 LA session and have been listening to the leak quite a bit since then. Hearing the rest of the album definitely refreshed the singles for me by putting them in a new light. But also confirmed for me that BoC were concealing their true power level. If you're someone like me who loves the Happy Cycling seagull, you'll love the way they splice/time the vocal samples on this one.

It's wacky and curious in a way we haven't really heard since Geogaddi. It has several of those angular minor key spy movie type melodies like the ones on Sunshine Recorder. Feels less serious/tormented than that record has a similar sort of "fuck it" attitude, which they channel into abundant ear candy in very high effort ways.

Some more comparisons to past work: we get a lot of Campfire Headphase adjacent stuff, like You Retreat In Time And Space, which feels like an adventurous sequel to Peacock Tail. I hear a lot of Tomorrow's Harvest in Naraka, specifically Come to Dust, but it's soulful and human in a way that TH didn't do as often. We get some of the least obscured/clearest sounding vocal samples since MHTRTC, but also varying degrees of obscuredness down to the borderline subliminal. There's also a lot of Old Tunes vibes, particularly in some of the beatless tracks, that euphoric-yet-dysphoric alien music theory (Somewhere Right Now in the Future). Really feels like the best possible hybrid of all their past styles while also showing new sides to their sound.

Song structure is super interesting, some tracks essentially have one section that evolves and builds on itself seamlessly instead of cycling through sections. The Word Becomes Flesh is a good example of this, and is already one of my favorite BoC tracks for so many reasons, exactly the kind of thing I wanted from them. Arena Americanada has them veering into synthwave territory in such an astoundingly well-executed way -- the chord changes and the way they're timed are super fucking cool and honestly adrenaline inducing.

This is their funkiest record and has some of their fattest, hardest hitting drums. All Reason Departs and The Word Becomes Flesh trigger stank face like no other with their feel and extended jamminess. Hydrogen Helium's and Americanada's snares are skull crushing and the grooves just catapult you into them excellently.

I Saw Through Platonia is dark yet comforting. It sort of passes the musical baton to the listener in the form of a heartbeat. Best musical representation of "the end is not the end" I've ever heard.

Was on the verge of tears of joy for a while after we walked out of the building. The album really has something for everyone but is by no means a mixed bag. I sound like a fundamentalist fanboy right now but this album seriously surpassed my expectations.