I was very quick to embrace CYNIC's new sound when they have made their major comeback with "Traced In Air", sure at first I was like... "where the hell did the death metal go?" Just like everyone else But it took me very little time to realize that their new album is a rare masterpiece that its only shortcoming is that well...it was to short. After that it was very for me to see where CYNIC would be going with their next releases (if there were more to come and they would not disappear for another 15 years) and sure enough this E.P is pretty much what I thought it would be...at least in terms of musical direction and vibe. "Traced In Air" had this really cool new age spiritual vibe to it and it was a lot softer than "Focus" so it was clear to me this next release would probably be even softer and that it would delve deeper into new age themes. In this one it even getting quite hard to brand CYNIC as a Metal band, It's more like really modern Progressive Rock and there is an even bigger emphasis on ambience than before.

There have been some lineup changes in the band recently and the only members left (if you count out Max Phelps and Brandon Giffin who only take part in the live shows) are the legendary Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert (yes...Sean Malone left...) and it seems that the main purpose of this E.P is to be an appetizer of what the new CYNIC are about to cook for us in the near future rather than to be an actual stand alone E.P and here lies the issue with this release, because this more a showcase than anything else the simply isn't enough meat to sink your teeth in, half of the songs on this release are more atmospheric intervals than actual songs, and the only songs in this E.P that contain any action are "Box Up My Bones" and "Elves Beam Out", there is also a neat solo and a C part in "Carbon Based Anatomy" but nothing much beyond it.

I love atmospheric intervals but when they are more abundant than actual songs in a release it simply doesn't leave me enough to refer to. Don't get me wrong, the actual songs in this E.P are amazing and I'm sure that the next full length album by this band is going to be fantastic but the framework of this release failed to leave an impact on me.