Ewigkeit

If you are at all appreciative of the progressive/metal/synth rock of Ewigkeit’s Radio Ixtlan, the newest entry in the Ewigkeit discography should, if anything, deepen that appreciation. Conspiritus’s atmospheres strongly parallel its concept, which resonates through the album’s title, song names like "The Thought Police,” and the familiarly mysterious eye-capped pyramid image on its cover. Ewigkeit fuse industrial and folk, samples and sound effects, with metal, pop and rock, and make allusions to more than just Orwell’s 1984 (intentionally or not). The words contain ironic references to John Lennon’s "Imagine,” and the track "Square Sunrise” echoes a part of Green Carnation’s Light of Day, Day of Darkness, for example, and the process of uncovering these connections falls somewhere between scavenger hunt and puzzle. Politically charged and sonically descriptive, Conspiritus can be listened to on multiple levels but doesn’t demand it — despite its complexity, the record fares well as fairly straightforward, though clearly hybrid, progressive rock.