Album art by Carl Glover

Style: Progressive rock, alternative rock, progressive metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief, Riverside
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 25 September 2026

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This previous August, I had the honor of attending Montreal’s own Progstorm festival alongside some of this site’s finest writers, and had an absolute blast getting to know my fellow degenerates esteemed critics while jamming out to sets from some of the finest acts in underground prog. Beyond exploring the city’s charming streets, witnessing the chaotic mosh pits¹, and throwing back medically-inadvisable quantities of beer, however, the festival also offered the pleasures of discovering artists whose music I hadn’t really gotten into prior, including headliners Pure Reason Revolution. While I had been vaguely aware of the band before, I had mentally placed them in the “pleasant yet milquetoast neo-prog” box along with the likes of The Pineapple Thief² and Gazpacho. After giving their most recent few albums a spin in preparation for their set, though, I was pleasantly surprised—while they do often sit in the same floaty, spacey sound as those bands, records like Eupnea offered a healthy dose of aggressive distortion and alt-rock bite alongside some genuinely solid hooks. Though my pre-show homework largely missed the mark on PRR‘s actual setlist³, they still put on quite the performance, and with their then-upcoming new release Terrifying Angels promising a refreshing turn towards their heavier side, I had high expectations. Seven albums and two decades into their career, can they still craft something we can’t look away from?

Mere seconds into opener, lead single, and sole Progstorm setlist representative “Spin Like Fire”, and it’s clear that PRR are decidedly in a metal mood. Roaring, distorted riffs crash in like tidal waves over pounding percussion, and bandleader Jon Courtney attacks his vocal lines with a disaffected, almost uncharacteristic sneer. Of course, it’s not all piss and vinegar—this grunginess is soon leavened by a smooth, melodic chorus that highlights Annicke Shireen’s angelic soprano alongside layers of piano and synth to take center stage while the guitars are momentarily resigned to quiet chugs. But the track, alongside roughly half of those present, remains distinctly direct, leaping from section to section with none of the slow-motion dithering that plenty of bands in the neo-prog space, PRR included, have often been happy to luxuriate in. Of these out-and-out rockers, “Haywire Heart” is perhaps the most remarkable, wasting zero time careening between fuzzed-out garage rock riffs, an incredibly catchy chorus hook, and even a gently atmospheric, synth-drenched bridge in a whiplash-inducing thrill ride that somehow packs its many meters and moods into under three minutes. A bit jarring in places, perhaps, but an admirable feat of compositional fat-cutting nonetheless.

Of course, just because Pure Reason Revolution have figured out the art of tight songwriting and heavy riffs, it’s not as if they’re about to abandon that time-honored neo-prog tradition of floaty, Pink Floyd-derived atmospherics entirely. Indeed, I once heard that you can tell how “prog” an album is by the standard deviation of its track lengths, and by that metric Terrifying Angels is quite prog indeed, offering multiple meaty epics to balance out its bite-sized bits. And while “Black Arrow Acrobats” pulls off roughly the same “heavy riff, hooky chorus, atmospheric bridge” type of transitions as its more concise brethren (albeit giving each section considerably more room to breathe), the ten-plus minute sprawls of the title track and closer “Hold Your Wrath” approach things a little differently. Each kicks off with its own long, multi-minute buildup that gradually turns the emotional dial from placid melancholy to uncanny discomfort, with the former stacking layers of synths like approaching thunder before the guitars arrive like a crash of rain and lightning while the latter relies upon Ravi Kesavaram’s insistent percussive pulse to drive things forward. From there, each epic sets forth on its own intricate journey through numerous peaks and valleys, alchemizing clangorous aggression into soaring refrains and vice versa, even throwing a few fun little surprises into the mix—my personal favorite is the tight, funky drum break⁴ and almost fusion-esque guitar solo thrown into the middle of “Hold Your Wrath”. These are clearly the work of a band with a killer sense of compositional dynamics and flow, and in that context the heavier elements fit in as just another extension of said dynamic range rather than a mere gimmick.

A shift in sound like this is seldom without its growing pains, though, and Terrifying Angels is no exception. Most obvious is the production—while Courtney & co. are clearly competent in crafting the calm, anodyne soundscapes of standard neo-prog, their inexperience in forging the heavier textures of metal is equally apparent. Going for a grungy, garage-rock guitar sound is one thing, but many of the riffs here sound oppressive in an unintentional way, frequently toeing the line between “hard” and “hard… to listen to”. Courtney’s vocals, too, don’t always hit; though he’s clearly giving his best shot at “aggressive” and his voice has largely shed the nasality of earlier works, the staticky production often makes his Steven Wilson-lite singing sound like it’s coming from the bottom of a well, and his harmonies with Shireen don’t always fully gel in the way they’re meant to. Speaking of Wilson, a good deal of this record feels quite close sonically to Porcupine Tree‘s turn towards metal in the 2000s, albeit with a bit less instrumental intricacy, and as good as it is, it often ends up just making me want to listen to In Absentia instead. A few of the calmer parts also feel a bit like retreading old ground—I can’t help but mentally sing the lyrics to “Betrayal” over the first few minutes of the title track, for instance. There’s a reason I liked that midsection in “Hold Your Wrath” so much, and it’s because it’s a genuinely unique curveball, the sort that I’d like to see these guys do more of.

In the end, though, while Terrifying Angels may have a few too many rough edges to completely reinvent the Pure Reason Revolution sound for a new era, it’s still a decidedly enjoyable record, one whose clear sonic ambition harmonizes strongly enough with the band’s compositional maturity and experience to forgive a few rough edges and familiar beats. It’s also an album heavily grounded in themes of transformation, and how it is never a gentle process. After two-plus decades, maintaining this level of drive and artistic vitality is hardly a given—these guys could very well have coasted on vaguely psychedelic prog-adjacent vibes for the rest of their days. And while they did not jump full-on into the unknown, even this single somewhat awkward step outside of their comfort zone makes for far more interesting art than if they did not take that step at all. Hopefully PRR can continue to make further strides towards this frightening new realm of sound, and never mistake safety for salvation.

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Recommended tracks: Black-Arrow Acrobats, Haywire Heart, Hold Your Wrath
You may also like: Cellar Noise, Liminal Sky, Karcius
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: InsideOut

Pure Reason Revolution is:
– Jon Courtney (vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, percussion)
– Annicke Shireen (vocals)
– Ravi Kesavaram (drums)
– Greg Jong (guitars)
With guests:
– Kristoffer Gildenlöw (bass on “Spin Like Fire” and “Rumination Ruin”
– Mariusz Duda (bass on “Black-Arrow Acrobats”)
– Nate Smith (drums on “Black-Arrow Acrobats” and “Hold Your Wrath”)
– Paul Mullen (guitar on “Haywire Heart”, guitars and keyboards on “Hold Your Wrath”)
– Augustine Rampolla (bass on “Terrifying Angels”)
– Paul Damian Hogan (keyboards on “Terrifying Angels”)
– Kenneth Fitzgerald (piano on “Below Radiance”)

1. Don’t let my fellow writer Noor’s small stature fool you, she will crash headlong into anyone in the pit with her and she is not afraid to get terribly bruised doing so. ↩︎
2. They’re known associates—in fact, Pineapple Thief frontman Bruce Soord mixed this very album. ↩︎
3. Playing your debut album from front to back in a festival appearance is one hell of a gutsy move, I’ll give them that. Wish I’d known ahead of time before making a playlist of mostly their new stuff, though. ↩︎
4. A surprise guest feature from master funk drummer Nate Smith, of all people. Didn’t expect the guy from the Fearless Flyers to show up on a random prog record, but I’m certainly not complaining. ↩︎