The Empyrean Equation of the Long Lost Things

Another little adventure in Vanden Plas territory for me as I liked 2020's The Ghost Xperiment - Illumination and wanted to hear what they were up to. Not much to say here, it's still Vanden Plas doing their thing and doing it well. Melodic progressive metal on the mellow side of the spectrum, with the band occasionally playing it harder ("more metal") without going overboard, not unlike some toned-down melodic power metal songs. One thing I like with these guys is that they're progressive without obsessing too much on showing off, writing actual songs rather than just flooding the listener with wankery and also not sounding overly boring like some progressive bands tend to do (for... reasons). That's still true on this album.