THE UNQUIET SKY

A concept album based on the classic M.R. James ghost story Casting the Runes, Arena's The Unquiet Sky might have a uniquely terrible album cover - seriously, it looks like something out of that era in the 2000s when bands kept trying to do CGI album covers but cheaped out on the rendering - but it's a rather grand little album, perhaps the group's best outing since Contagion or The Visitor. It's certainly prioritising the theatrical over the experimental, but there's always been a strand of prog that's done that - especially in the neo-prog subgenre - and it's certainly a stirringly emotive set of tunes which lean a bit harder into the heavier side of the band's sound.