Today I’m taking a break from the book blogging to bring you another of my famously lacklustre music reviews. I know next to nothing about music, I only know that some sounds are more pleasant than others. Of course, this is still At Boundary’s Edge, so naturally I’m talking about music that’s got more than a hint of science fiction in its blood.

Unleash the Archers have always had an element of genre fiction in their DNA. Apex and Abyss told an apocalyptic story that I don’t really understand, but which led to some very good songs. Their latest album, Phantoma is even more narratively driven, and blatantly riffs on some classic science fiction tropes. Broadly speaking, the album charts the life of Ph4/NTOmA (also the name of the third song) an android living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, searching for what it means to exist in such a desolate world. Yes, it’s that classic standby of the robot who wonders what it’s like to be alive. It’s actually quite similar in premise to And Yet it Dreams from Kalah, released only a few months ago, but Unleash the Archers bring a wealth of musical experience to the table alongside their different style.

I can happily say that this is the band’s strongest album to date. The eponymous title track is a powerhouse performance from vocalist Brittany Slayes, who goes through her full and impressive vocal range over the course of the album. There’s everything from soaring arias to bone-rattling growls as the story continues. The heavier beat of ‘The Collective’ is balanced by the more tender ballad of ‘Give it Up or Give it All.’ The variety of styles in play makes for an album that doesn’t slow down. It’s aggressively paced, and overall feels a lot shorter than it’s near hour-long runtime.

Individual songs, however, are a different matter. I’m something of a heavy metal heretic, in that I think it can often go on for a bit too long. I’m no great lover of guitar solos, and the repeated riffing has yet to grow on me. And really, seven minutes is a little long for a song. In fact, there’s only track in here that’s under five minutes long. Perhaps not coincidentally, the rapid-fire ‘Buried in Code’ is my favourite of the batch.

A story about artificial intelligence wouldn’t be anywhere without a little controversy, and it’s a shame that the release of the album’s first single was overshadowed by certain design choices. For those who haven’t seen it, the music video for ‘Green & Glass’ was generated by AI, bearing all the distinctive hallmarks of that style. Inevitably, this got a lot of people up in arms, but it is worth noting that the band went out of their way to balance the excitement of new technology with a respect for human artists. HUmna art is still the core of the video, but it has been adapted by machine learning to suit the narrative of the album. I’m not saying it’s without fault, but it’s nice to see people striving for a way to embrace the new without discarding the old when it comes to controversial new technologies. Like it or not, these things are part of our world now. The best way to tackle them is to find ethically suitable uses rather than trying in vain to hold back the tide. Clearly, we still have a long way to go before these technologies are anything other than a soulless, copyright-infringing, abomination factory, but Phantoma brings hope that one day machines and humans can all find a way to get along.