Kicking off with 'Leaves Eclipse The Light' he hasn't moved away from the evocative emotion that his fans so treasure, but he has tempered it to leave room for different things - peaceful pianos and fragmented vocal lines. He wisely choses to limit the vocal tracks on 'Similes', as I fear they aren't dynamic enough to span a whole album. But they do go further than mumbling and cooing, it's actually singing, with words and everything.

Other than that it's pretty recognisable - the rumbling 'In Culmination' and the dark, crackling 'Nightmare 5' both see a return to his instrumental past but they are both well worth a listen if only for the unadulterated feeling Cooper manages to pack into each and every song he does. 

Cooper has yet to compute how to make his voice do more colourful things than his digital equipment and gentle classical instrument arrangements and as a result this album is as much an experiment as it is a return to past form. It's not going to cause epiphany but it will sit you in a lovely aural room for a while, so long as you can deal with someone else being in there with you this time.