Listening to the almost entirely instrumental Oak Park, IL, outfit The Impulse Eclectic makes an even bigger impression once it’s discovered that the whole thing is basically a solo project. Multi-instrumentalist and occasional vocalist Edward Nudd drums, plays guitar, bass and keyboards, which means he’s way into home recording or he plotted out the six songs on his new EP, Canyon of Spiders, in his head in advance. Either way, the music is insular but complete sounding. The problem with solo projects more often than not is they’re too self-indulgent (you could argue that’s why they exist in the first place, for self-indulgence). The Impulse Eclectic doesn’t fall into that trap.

That’s not to say the instrumental prog that pervades Canyon of Spiders is down-home simplistic either, just that Nudd keeps things moving along and none of the songs are really long enough to wear down listeners. “Altercation,” the lead cut, is the second longest song at 5:24. Only closer “Bloodlines” has a longer runtime at 10:51. Nudd is concise in his delivery, and though like a lot of instrumentals, it’s easy to get lost in the title track or “The Abyss Once Illuminated” which follows it — the riffs opening, closing, weaving in and out of each other in a mix that could stand to be fuller but sounds professional and clear nonetheless — when the vocals come in on “Phantom Vibrations,” it’s a jarring enough change to snap back any attention lost.

Nudd‘s vocal style is quiet, sounding as though he lacks confidence in his range, but like a mixture of mid-register James LaBrie and melodic Devin Townsend, his voice gives an edge to “Phantom Vibrations,” offering a change of pace while maintaining a consistency of tone, especially in the layers of guitar. The solo contributed by Great Solar Stance‘s Matt Schneider that comes in at 1:52 crosses channels and synchs up with the drums, bass an rhythm guitar for an affect like that on last year’s Cynic comeback album, Traced in Air (thankfully minus the vocoder when the vocals come back in).

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