In 1998 the solitary project of THE HERETIC’s bassist, Nexusseis (I’m speaking both about the person and the band), saw the light, and was quite far from what we could here on its main band, as it was a pure futuristic Ambient album, inspired by the cult movie “Blade Runner” (if I’m not that wrong, as I never listened to it), from where he took his name too. And no more news arrived from this project until nowadays, when this new album is released, now under the NEXUS 6 name (“seis” is 6 in Spanish), and with a surprising change in their style. Ambient was left behind, even though the futuristic background remained, for “A Strange Habitat”, which could be qualified as a mix between progressive stuff, technical Black Metal and a lot more influences, which bring to mind EMPEROR, ARCTURUS or COVENANT on the “Nexus Polaris” album, even some polish Death Metal (for the most extreme parts with blastbeats) and even some Prog Rock / Metal touches (especially for some guitar riffs which are not that far from DREAM THEATER or SYMPHONY X). The songs don’t give you that much time to get used to one riff, as the breaks and tempo changes are continuous, and the most surprising is they link really well. They are not too cheesy, even if it’s hard to get them all at the first listen, as it could happen with EMPEROR’s last album (even if this is not so twisted) and the paranoias of ARCTURUS. In fact, I’d like to be able to compare this with what THE HERETIC are doing nowadays, but I don’t follow them since “Fallen From Heaven”. Anyways, the influences seem to be quite similar, so I imagine they have some common points, at least on the vocal side, as Rhülk is doing them here too. They don’t forget some Industrial / Ambient vibes too, being ‘Phantom City’ (my favourite track) a bit similar to what THE KOVENANT did on “Animatronic”, with some marcial riffs and really original guitar leads. I think I don’t need to make more comments about what you can find in the Spanish scene than all I’ve done in a lot of reviews. If this came from another country, I’m sure they would be hailed, and I say that without being the biggest fan of this style, but when you have quality in front of you, you feel it. www.xtreemmusic.com