Strange, very strange, some rare moments exist in your life that make you say that, some good, some bad, and that was my first thought upon encountering ABNORMAL THOUGHT PATTERNS new offering "Manipulation Under Anesthesia".

A moment of honesty with you my friends, most instrumental Metal has the tendency to sound like musical masturbation to me, and as you may have noticed from the "Band" section of this review, no Vocalist is listed, which makes this an instrumental album, which is why I find this so very strange, in a very good way. Strange because this album does not sound like musical masturbation, hell no, it's full on intercourse. Ok ok, I'll stop with the metaphors, let's get right to it,

When I first heard the band's name, one thought popped into my head, "Individual Thought Patterns" and that thought continued when I heard the first 26 seconds of the opening track "Velocity and Acceleration Movement 5", at the 27^th second however that thought vanished without a trace, "5" is the first of 4 such named tracks on this album (the first 4 parts can be found on the band's debut EP), the song is a wonderfully heavy and melodic opening, which flows seamlessly into "6", a slower song with a partially electronic opening and absolutely fantastic bass work, "7" continues the slower moodier feel and "8" closes the 4 part piece perfectly with slightly faster and very impressive guitar work.

As "Velocity and Acceleration" come to an end, we're greeted with a surprise, an electronic intro welcomes us into the Jazzy "Calculating Patterns", and indeed, this isn't a jazz "influenced" song, this is pure instrumental Jazz, a rarity on a Metal album. The pace changes very quickly with the longest song on the album, "Harmonic Oscillators" a much faster number full of both pure progressive goodness and at times fast headbanging beats. "4 String Lullaby" is as you may have guessed a bass solo, sadly only one minute long, but great to hear nonetheless (What can I say? I'm a bass player). "Autumn" fits its title perfectly, somewhat of a somber song changing the mood of the album yet again,

Not surprising that the title track is impressive from the very intro, electronic sounds and dueling guitars welcome us to "Manipulation Under Anesthesia", a song which truly gives you the feel of the entire record. "Electric Sun 2.0" continues the mid tempo pace until we reach the closing track "Quintessence" an acoustic opening which gives way to a Jazz closing makes this the perfect way to end this album.

As I said in the very beginning, I'm not a fan of instrumental Metal, but this album is not musical masturbation, it's a musical masterpiece. With the longest song being just a little over 7 minutes long, and most others not even crossing the 5 minute mark, none of these songs overstay their welcome, pace and style changes throughout this recording make it one of the best Progressive Metal albums I've heard in years.