Progressive RockPost-rock
Amanesis Arts · 11 September 2026
Everything that sounds on «Empyrean» comes from an acoustic cello. «Speed of Light» opens with arpeggios stacked one on top of the other, the instrument doubling as both percussion and bass in its lower register, over a progression lifted straight from Bach’s Prelude in G major. Raphael Weinroth-Browne builds it all up with effects pedals and loops, with no guest musicians at all.
«Integration» splits a question and an answer between high and low registers, layering in electronic pulses until the track closes back in on itself. «Sanctum» settles over a low drone that sounds almost like an organ, and «Reflection» shifts into another world entirely: chained sixteenth-note patterns closer to Meshuggah than to any chamber hall.
Forty-four minutes of a single instrument is a lot of minutes, and the procedure — layer, loop, build, resolve — repeats often enough that you can see it coming by the second half. Only two of the nine tracks do without loops, and one of them, «Remnant», forty-one seconds of solo cello, is the record’s moment where you hear the wood of the instrument the most.
«Empyrean» came out on 11 September as a self-release, runs 44 minutes and 7 seconds across nine tracks, and closes with the title piece, seven and a half minutes long. Weinroth-Browne has played with Leprous since 2016.
Rating: 7.5/10
Text by Guillem Cardós