Clear 70's prog throwback opener "In-A-Gadda-DeVito" rushes by long before we can catch up, a retro-tinged flurry of arpeggiated, scalar unison guitar and keyboard shredding which moves with such rapidity and irregularity that beyond the intro it's difficult to follow the riffs.  The fuzzed out bass is a classic sound, and lovers of the instrumental breakdown of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" should have a big smile on their faces.  Acrux plays with the supernaturally ceaseless, optimistic and irrepressible energy that bands like Yes and ELP had in their heyday, though with this track there is little direction or energetic ebb and flow to the composition by comparison to those bands, who could gracefully work up to a powerful finale without breaking a sweat.  After 5 minutes the band is still furiously churning, with neither a more spacious lead in to the frenzied activity nor some kind of climactic release to end it.  That said, as a whole "Radian Futura" contains none of the big, sappy, overharmonized major key finishes that have been run into the ground by Dream Theater et al (even in their instrumental works), and this is a tremendous blessing!  In fact, this album stays playful and emotionally detached throughout, holding back from displays of sentimentality.  There is blank, Buddhist joy and thoughtlessness.  This does mean significantly less dramatic peaks and valleys or real surprises, but it is an honest attitude with none of the chest beating and imagined bravado of theatric, image-oriented rock music.

"Prelude to Forshadow'n" is a nice little slice of experimentation that incorporates electronically looped recordings of the band into its flow, initially startling but cleverly rhythmic.  They add artificial vinyl surface noise as if to indicate that these sections are meant to imitate a skipping record.  Preceding the loop driven middle section, the band plays angular, oddly timed riffs repetitively, mimicing the sound the loops with soon introduce and blurring the line between what has been played and what has been digitally constructed.  This whole track is saturated with the ominous, labyrinthine dissonance of 'Red'-era Crimson, and there's some lovely moog-ish synth work in the middle, as well, which further augments the threatening strangeness and spaced out vibes of the song.

Following this are two more short tracks that once again reveal their depth with time.  "Landscape with Gun and Chandelier" notably breaks into two chord, atmospheric rock filled with the naivete and youthful excitement of guitar oriented 90's alternative music like Smashing Pumpkins or Sonic Youth, showing that for all their complexity, Upsilon Acrux clearly understands the need for driving, simple music of the anthemic variety.  It's one of the most immediately memorable parts of the record.

As if we still needed impressing, the penultimate piece on the album, titled "Transparent Seas" (with the amusing and evidently sarcastic suffix 'radio edit') turns out to be a 28 minute opus, which within a few minutes of its running time has easily eclipsed every other piece of music on the record.  If you have any kind of taste for prog, I swear, after 7 or 8 minutes of this one, you will be LAUGHING at its sheer genius.  I have a hunch they'd been saving up their ideas for this track, as I can't remember the last time I've heard so much material crammed into this much space.  There's even a full blown drum solo that slowly submerges itself under layers of filters and effects, as well as forays into Dillinger Escape Plan-esque muted polyrhythms.

The album ends with a 1 minute psych pop number, "The Infinitesimal Fractions of Ping & Pong", which creates a lush, rhythmic soundscape out of delay effects which is not unlike the carefree, sunshine drenched output of groups like Animal Collective.  It's obviously an experiment for the band, but turns out great.

For all this it's a sure bet that the chaotic, maximalist compositional style of this band will leave only question marks in quite a few people's heads.  This fast paced, dense album takes time to absorb, and there's no way around it.  Luckily, the band's playful nature and the clean production of the record make "Radian Futura" a pleasant listen long before the compositions have been fully absorbed, and once you finally do absorb them, you'll discover a brilliant and highly replayable 47 minutes of music to match any progressive album of the last 10 years.