Beloved prog/alternative/electronic rockers Pure Reason Revolution have had an incredible comeback since returning with 2020’s Eupnea. In fact, it – as well as successors Above Circus from 2022 and Coming Up to Consciousness from 2024 – recaptured the vibes of the band’s initial trilogy while also producing some of PRR’s freshest and most gratifying material. Thankfully, that trend continues with Terrifying Angels, another terrific entry into their catalog that sustains the spirit of its predecessors as it delivers a considerably more retro and ethereal experience.
The core quintet from Coming Up to Consciousness (singer/multi-instrumentalist Jon Courtney, vocalist Annicke Shireen, guitarist Greg Jong, and drummer Ravi Kesavaram) return for Terrifying Angels. They’re also joined by bassists Mariusz Duda (Lunatic Soul, ex-Riverside) and Kristoffer Gildenlöw (ex-Pain of Salvation), with Pineapple Thief mastermind Bruce Soord handling mixing duties. Unsurprisingly, the result is a pristine production with sublime chemistry between all involved.
As for the LP’s inspirations and motivations, Courtney explains: “The last record was more chill, so it just felt terribly natural to do something grittier, heavier and more aggressive. . . . Terrifying Angels is about encountering forces that appear redemptive and discovering that transformation is never gentle. The album follows a narrator who repeatedly mistakes salvation for safety, only to learn that the forces that save us are often the same forces that undo us. Ultimately, he must reach a deeper understanding by accepting complexity.”
Arguably, the most intriguing thing about the set is how (intentionally or not) it feels partially like an homage to the group’s initial outings.
For example, opener “Spin Like Fire” melds PRR’s trademark heavenly male/female harmonies with rambunctious distortion that evokes pieces from 2010’s Hammer and Anvil (namely, “Fight Fire”). Later, the expansive title track’s slowly evolving blend of wistful guitarwork, keys, and rhythms eventually conjures the melancholic tension of “The Bright Ambassadors of Morning” from 2006’s The Dark Third. To be clear, neither of those pieces – nor any others that recall earlier tunes – are unoriginal; on the contrary, they give listeners more characteristically haunting and dynamic PRR gems amidst alluding to past triumphs in ways that longtime followers will appreciate.
At times, Terrifying Angels leans into extremely spacy sequences, too. In particular, the title track also channels Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” and passages from The Dark Side of the Moon with its psychedelic closing keyboard solo and trippy moments of ghostly tranquility. Clocking in at roughly twelve-and-a-half minutes, its various juxtapositions between turmoil and calmness (including some of the band’s loveliest melodies) make it an especially diverse and ambitious composition.
On that note, and to Courtney’s point, pieces such as “Black-Arrow Acrobats,” “Rumination Ruin,” and “Haywire Heart” crank up the chaos to almost unprecedented degrees. Elsewhere, the largely electronic and abstract “Below Radiance” is wonderfully bittersweet, whereas the nearly 15-minute finale – “Hold Your Wrath” – surrounds grounded emotional payoffs with unpredictable and inventive changeups that easily make it the group’s most “epic” song to date. (The ending is especially awe-inspiring.)Terrifying Angels isn’t overtly superior or inferior to its immediate predecessors. Instead, and like those other records, it peppers Pure Reason Revolutions’ central formulas with eye-catching new touches to deliver something simultaneously familiar and novel. That it simultaneously investigates the past, upholds the present, and previews the future (in terms of PRR’s identity) is its greatest strength, and it’ll surely delight longtime Pure Reason Revolution devotees and appear on many ‘Best of 2026’ year-end lists.
Release Date: September 25th, 2026
Record Label: InsideOut Music
Genre: Crossover Prog/Alternative Rock/Electronic
Musicians:
- Jon Courtney / Lead vocals, guitars, bass, keys, percussion, production
- Greg Jong / Guitars
- Ravi Kesavaram / Drums
- Annicke Shireen / Vocals
Guest Musicians:
- Mariusz Duda / Bass
- Kristoffer Gildenlöw / Bass
Terrifying Angels Tracklist:
- Spin Like Fire
- Black-Arrow Acrobats
- Haywire Heart
- Terrifying Angels
- Rumination Ruin
- Below Radiance
- Hold Your Wrath
Order the album here.
The post PURE REASON REVOLUTION – Terrifying Angels (Album Review) appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
Dreams are no longer just the soundtracks to sleep. Dreams are a disease, transmitted from sleeper to sleeper, gaining strength until it consumes the final victim entirely. Dreams are a sticky, tar-like affair. Dreams wait patiently; dreams can kill. We sleep and turn off the real world, but its reprieve offers no rest. Dreams dwell among the uncanny, the images of our loved ones or the places where we’ve felt safe, but nostalgia is in distant lands; this time, these figures are haunted: eyeless mothers and children with black spewing from their gaping mouths. These dream places and figments are just masks for some darkness lurking behind it – an inevitable malady. Sleep is not safe.
Rorcal’s wherewithal to burn in calculated intensity or explode in unhinged mania is Mahre’s clearest asset. Its five-movement crescendo, while intensely planned, features plenty of breath across its tidy forty minutes, allowing these movements to crash and burn in natural deterioration. The evolution from movements I to V is not only the progression from ominous blackened dissonant atmospheres to crushing sludge weight, but also from calculation to mania. By movements IV and V, the rhythms start deteriorating, and the simmering viciousness begins to derail, and the sonic dream sickness feels more like succumbing. A descent guided by vocalist Yonni Chapatte’s manic barks and shrieks, the anchor that holds your sanity in place, the transitions from the sprawling creepy dissonance of the first two movements, the punishing centerpiece “Movement III,” to the conclusions when the rhythms start falling into disarray, are truly an experience to behold.