The first album from A Perfect Circle in 14 years doesn't start with an furiously angled riff, a giant slab of art-metal grunt or one of those blood-curdling howls from Maynard James Keenan.
Instead, there are stuttering jazz drums, a melancholy piano line, swelling strings and a mournful Keenan moaning obtusely about swings.
If you're a fan of A Perfect Circle, Billy Howerdel's band that gave those who wanted their Keenan melodramas to play out with a little less apocalyptic gloom than they did in Tool, you've been waiting a long time for this.
It's an unexpected but welcoming start for the band's third studio album, one that sets a moody, but playful, tone that permeates the album.