The opening track from Canvas Solaris's Irradiance sounds a bit like Symphony X decided to fight robots instead of mythical beasts, fusing their heavier take on Prog/Power with loads of synth noises and backdrops. It's impressive, and left me waiting for some high pitched warbler to come in and ruin the fun (here's looking at you James LaBrie).

But it didn't happen.

And thank Christ for that! While there are some parts of the album that sound like they were left open for vocals they're generally not missed. In their place are some fantastic leads and soloing from guitarists Nathan Sapp and Chris Rushing, who don't blow their load with constant sweeps and scales at hemidemisemiquaver intervals for 10 minutes at a time. A fine example of this would be The Horizon Feasts on Stars, with each elements twisting in about each other. Meanwhile the following track Glacier is something most tech death bands would love to achieve. Accelerated Testing Phase is probably where the keyboards stand out the most with the ambient interlude in the middle of the song, as well as the creepy outro. While they add atmosphere to the album fairly well some of the sounds used are a little cheesy and limp which drags the experience down a bit. The Horizon Feasts on Stars gets hit with a bit of Moog bass that just sounds off and is the only downside to an otherwise excellent song. Final track Null Proximity is a bit different to the rest of the tracks, going for a more acoustic 70's inspired vibe as opposed the space themes that are dominant else where and stands out as a highlight of the album for that reason.

The album does have a few bad points, like the keyboard issues mentioned above and the drums sounding weak at times, but the album is a solid, occasionally challenging listen that most prog fans will lap up.