"The alarm that blares through one's brain, signaling that everything will not , in fact, be all right. For over a decade and a half, Oneiroid Psychosis has crafted intricate songs that zero in on a listener's panic trigger. And with Sentient , the bristly sixth album, OP's music takes on perhaps its darkest hue yet. From the ghostly opening chords of "Adipocere" on through the epic lament that is "Ambivalence" and finally to a culminating, dour comment on "The Sardonic Smile", Sentient renders an emotional miasma of echoed whispers and straining wails. Of quiet explosions and ominous silences. Of ethereal synths, menacing bass swells, death-rattle drums and siren-like female voices. Darkest fears are realized; deepest wounds are opened; haunted dreams are lived out again and again in vivid slow motion. Life, death, love and hate battle over the remaining crumbs of a shattering soul. And repeat. Sentient 's milieu traverses the personal, the psychic and the spiritual. The sordid and the sublime. And with each ashened note, tortured lyric and sinister melody, the album intones its ultimate warning: Your most dreaded intuitions are true, and there's hell to be paid." —Al Ritchie