This album is very interesting. It's hard to believe Alexi finally managed (from what I've heard) to tone down the rhythm complexity back to simple but effective riffing. Something specifically mentioned before : )
The sound so far is so distinct, and I don't want to start making conclusions with so little samples, but it's definitely unique. If you have to give it a color it's not blue or green... or even red. This is what I'm hearing:
Rhythm: Old School.
Lead: Modern (so far). The first Transference sample sounded like an AYDY melody, especially with the keyboard sound attached. HOB solos sound straight out of RRF or AYDY.
Keyboards: Mixed. A lot of distinct, loud, and sharp keyboard of modern COB. But at the same time there is the mellow keyboard from FTR that helped quite a lot in that atmospheric sound.
Vocals: It's 34 year old Alexi trying to sound young and angry again. It's got the layering thing going on again.
Will this be COB's black album?? Purple?