Wheel, Resident Human

There are albums that test my time and patience in ways that frustrate me. And then there are those albums that pay big rewards for diving in deep. Wheel's Resident Human is the latter. It's a 50 minute epic album of mood and tone that can be intense, heavy, and at times dark and ominous as this Finish band with English frontman James Lascelle try making sense of the turmoil and emotional toll that the last few years have taken on us all. 

If this all sounds too much to handle, it's not. Wheel masterly moves from heavy and ominous to welcomingly melodic and quiet at all the right moments giving needed space for Lascelle, who sings with such intensity, the album, and the listener time to breath. It all makes listening to Resident Human absolutely captivating. Not since Tool's Fear Inoculum have a found myself so drawn to a prog metal album and I suspect that this will be the case for many others as well. This is one of the fiercest and most rewarding albums that I have listed to all year and it definitely deserves your time.