yeah, there was a flurry of comment about this one a couple weeks back, led me to pick up the thing.
As someone who actually would listen to the kind of music this thing is based on (early sixties cooled out Gil Evans Orchestra, Coltrane rhythm section etc.), I find it underwhelming. The nice thing about the Cinematic Orchestra is that it really locates a particular moment in style, and is able to successfully convey its flavor. And, yeah, the dreaminess of the repetitions and the strangely treated vocals is a very nice touch.
But it wears thin pretty fast for me, and then it just becomes stylized pastiche, suitable for your upscale lounge or coffee house, jazz for people who are troubled by sixteenth notes, a nice moody Gil Evans background album without any of those troublesome soloists.