Severed Angel release The Cost Of Creation on 11 December through NoLifeTilMetal Records, with Mirage Of Love out ahead of it.
Nine songs and an hour of music, and it is a concept record with a story rather than a theme. A man uses artificial intelligence and robotics to recreate the people he has lost, and the record follows what that does to him. The band are explicit that they did not want to lecture anyone about technology, which is the trap most records on this subject fall into.
It opens on an orchestral piece called Overture: Symphony Of Circuits and closes on Immanence Or Transcendence, eighteen minutes long. Gail Bourque and Ken Pike guest on Just One Kiss. The band name Dream Theater, Queensryche, Rush and Fear Factory as the records behind it, and there are rhythms built on Morse code running through it.
Wayne Noon formed the band in 2022 and has put out four records since, with George Dimitri on bass, Marc Muchnik on keyboards, Alex Repetti on vocals and guitar and Lou Mavs on guitar. Four albums in four years is a rate that usually belongs to a much younger scene.