It is never entirely clear which version of MORTIIS we are going to get.
35 years ago, Håvard Ellefsen was playing bass guitar with Norwegian black metal icons EMPEROR.
Towards the end of the '90s, he was making pioneering dungeon synth records like "Crypt of the Wizard" and "The Stargate".
A few years after that, metal's favorite rubber-faced polymath was showcasing a profound love of NINE INCH NAILS via industrial rock oddities "The Smell of Rain" and "The Grudge".
In more recent times, Ellefsen has seemed to hedge his bets, between the ambient textures of his early days as a solo artist, and the more commercially strident industrial experiments that enabled him to present MORTIIS as a real band, rather than a shadowy solo project.
A decade on from his last bona fide studio albums, "The Great Deceiver" and "The Unraveling Mind", the Norwegian is now in the enviable position of being a one-man mystery, with no concrete affiliations to a particular sound or genre.
Whether out of sheer defiance or merely because it makes sense in his head, "Ghosts of Europa" is another record that stretches the boundaries of what a MORTIIS record can be.
Part industrial rock odyssey, part textural dreamscape, and part wonky, left-field pop record, it will leave listeners with no clearer idea of what the man's ultimate creative goals are at this stage.
Perhaps that is the point.
The album opens with the title track, a dreamy blend of ornate '90s techno, eerie auto-tuned vocals, dark industrial throb, and spaced-out TANGERINE DREAM-like ambience that slowly mutates over its seven-minute duration into a dubbed-out, cracked mirror image of itself.
Sonically huge and redolent of producer Trevor Horn's lavish and ambitious '80s productions, it quietly demands to be played through expensive hi-fi equipment.
The album also features standout tracks like "Return To The Old Fields", which showcases elegant instrumental drift and evocative, esoteric vocals that enhance the cool sheen of their backdrop with a splash of angsty humanity.
Despite some less impressive moments, "Ghosts of Europa" is still a sharp and catchy piece of post-post-modern songwriting with hazy, futuristic atmosphere to burn.