Me likey a lot! I loved his first Tiktaalika record and with this one he takes the metal and groove further away from his day job in Haken. I’m super stoked to see Textures vocalist, Daniel De Jongh guest on three tracks as I’m a big fan, and I can’t wait to hear the new material from them.
We are in concept album world here, exploring the supercontinent of Pangea and all of its life. Only seven tracks on the vinyl version, but lots of very heavy crushing metal riffs, with plenty of groove entwined around the more proggy elements make this a very enjoyable listen indeed.
The title track is a monster piece of music but The Forbidden Zone tweaks the nodes of groove perfectly while at the same time sounding heavy and dark, it reminds a tad of Mastodon. It’s not all heavy crunch and groove, Mesozoic Mantras has more progtastic melodic sections to add some differing flavours to the proceedings.
Great record and I highly recommend it as great addition to the collection.
9/10 from The Grooveman.
