The Enid have been around a very long time. Despite that, I actually have never really gotten around to listen to them. So going into this review, I had a bit of a quandary. Do I go back and familiarize myself? Since this new album isn’t exactly “new” and more importantly, since this lineup is made up of members who only date back to 2007, this is really a new band. It reminds me a bit of where the band Gong is at. Since I loved the new Gong album and treated it as a separate entity, I thought I would do that with “Resurgency.”

“Resurgency” is made up of re-worked versions of songs from the last 3 albums by the Enid. Musically I did enjoy most of the tracks, some more than others. The main problem through out the album is that the vocals are VERY weak. So much so that the band chose to use a vocoder a LOT which may have been an effort to mask said weak vocals. Sadly it just made it harder to listen to.

I don’t actually mind the use of a vocoder if used sparingly. Back when Cynic used it on the album “Focus,” I thought it was over used and that classic album did suffer to me because of it. The arrangements are slightly heavy on “Resurgency” but since The Enid are not a heavy band, it seems really odd to me. I do respect that the three current members (Jason Ducker, Dominic Tofield and Zach Bullock) want to point the direction for the future, I’m just not convinced that it’s a good direction.

As someone as I said who never followed The Enid, I guess I don’t have a big stake in the success of this album. But as someone who might have used this album to explore the band’s vast back catalog, this really doesn’t convince me that I should bother. In reading the band’s bio, perhaps they might have either convinced vocalist Joe Payne to stay or replaced him with a formal frontman. But that didn’t happen.

I assume the trio have the support of past members of The Enid so I do wish them the best of luck in keeping the band’s legacy alive. I think they didn’t exactly do the band any favors by reworking old songs with weak vocals and questionable arrangements. Perhaps recording fresh, new music with a new singer would have been more interesting.

Rating: 4/10

Tracklist:

1. Reborn in the Fire
2. Space Surfing
3. Malacandra
4. Leviticus
5. Terra Firma
6. Who Created Me
7. Witch Hunt
8. Someone Shall Rise for you
9. Shiva

Website: www.theenid.co.uk