Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus is a brilliant double album, pulling inspirations from rock, pop, art rock, blues & folk to create a fairly experimental but easily accessible and expansive album. Part 1: “Abattoir Blues” starts with a bang with the loud rocker “Get ready for love”. The gospel vocals against the heavy riffs work perfectly here, and gets the album off to a brilliant start, even if the song does drag on a little too long. “Cannibals hymn” calms things down, but is still just as interesting, with its dark lyrics and haunting instrumentation. “Hiding all away” marks a return to the rock energy of the opening track but does it even better with a great bluesy influence and an incredible build up in the verses to a loud release. Following this is “Messiah ward” which takes a more laid back approach with its lush instrumentation and nice vocals. It’s more basic than other tracks until this point, but still sounds great. “There she goes, my beautiful world” is the gospel backing vocals / heavy guitar and piano combination and it’s best and most catchy with brilliant melodies. The vocals here are passionate and the song is so energetic. “Nature boy” is a bit more laid back but is just as well made and another one of the catchiest points of the album so far. “Abattoir blues” is a good track where the drums standout as the most engaging part, and some nice backing vocals which stand alone in the outro. “Let the bells ring” sees a return to the great choruses on a relatively standard but very well executed track. Closing out side one of this double album is “Fable of the brown ape” which uses the quiet build up / loud release formula quite well but it’s not as effective as on other tracks on side 1. Part 2: “The Lyre of Orpheus” opens up with its title track, a dark, gritty blues inspired track which opens up side 2 so well. “Breathless” which follows it, on the other hand, is a bright, emotional and pop inspired song which with a great vibe, amazing vocal performance and a catchy chorus and verses. “Babe, you turn me on” slows down the pace with a great romantic ballad and from lyrics to vocals to production is a lovely song all round. “Easy money” is a good, slightly dark, slow burning rock song kept interesting by some good vocals and lyrics. “Supernaturally” picks up the pace as an infectiously energetic rock song with one of the catchiest parts of the album coming in the chorus. “Spell” kicks off the final stretch of the album decently well with a passable but ultimately basic and unremarkable track. The next track “Carry me” does a similar style better with a nice gospel chorus and is just a more interesting track all round. The final track “O Children” is the perfect closer. An emotional build up with fantastic backing vocals which ultimately fades out to end the album on a good note. Overall, this album is a fantastic listening experience. For a double album, it doesn’t drag and there are no real misses. The album could and maybe should have had some of the less interesting tracks removed, and the album could’ve done with some refining in terms of shortening a couple of tracks which go on a bit too long. Despite this, there are no real big low points and the album stays consistently engaging, with brilliant performances on all fronts including the vital gospel vocals that feature on so many tracks. 4/5.