When I first came across ETHERNSENS, on picking them up, I admittedly found the music difficult to access, let alone write about. It took a couple of full listen-through's of the album to figure out if that was a good thing or not; we shall see. "Your Wandering Ghost" is the latest album by the French alt-Prog-who-knows Metal band; containing only 8 tracks, there is only one average-length track; the majority play for above and beyond 8 minutes each. Quite a meaty endeavor, I'd say.

The opening track, "Two For One Mind" has a lot to be said about it, capping out at over 9 minutes, and containing a diverse amount of styles and creative ideas from a variety of musical thought processes. The first 4 minutes of the track are that of eerie discordance and (effective) disharmony conjured by subtle atmospherics and wistful guitar licks. These are overlaid by Laurent's vocals, ranging from Peter Steele-like Doom drones to Maynard-like wails. Right before the exceptionally long intro begins to grow monotonous, it surprisingly blows up in sections of fast and powerful drum/guitar tremolo runs. It is here that classic styles reminiscent of notable American art-rock from the 90's shine through. I am hearing exceedingly obvious (perhaps even intended) TOOL influences here, something that never runs afoul of my ears. From here on in, the song only manages to diversify even further, with the riff and vocal arrangements growing in technicality and emotion.

"This is Where You and I Part Ways" follows much more closely an alternative rock niche with more accessibly melodic and rhythmic arrangements. Dare I even mention the word catchy? This is what we hear for about two minutes, until we're slowly pulled out and under to the soulfully rhythm and beat dominated deep end... I think. A tremendous and powerful propel into Rock territory is once against instigated as previous. Clearly, ETHERNSENS is not afraid to throw in a little suddenness into their music; because each and every song is especially different in its own way, every little musical breakdown leaves us completely unprepared for what comes next. "Walking Disorder" had to be my favorite here, for it lies almost completely in the area of progressive metal. Perfectly-executed riff arrangement executes a tumbling-down of bleak tradeoffs between rhythm guitar tracking and a trippy, syncopated, multi-rhythmic drumming pattern. Once again, the song continues to evolve with growing opacity, and less 'thin' or soft areas; a wall of sound build bar by bar.

Alternative metal, and also that of Prog is meticulously, or even by chance, engineered, to turn out unique from one band to the next. Quite frankly, going by the entirety of an album, ETHERSENS sounds like nothing I have ever heard before.