I admit that I also automatically lose a bit of interest if I see "familiar C-like (algol-like) syntax" as a supposed feature in a new programming language, there is also no point in being original just for originality's sake, and the space of possible syntaxes for programming languages has been pretty well explored. But in terms of semantics this really doesn't look much like an "Algol clone" at all, rather it seems to want to explore the conceptual space between imperative and functional languages where Rust has been breaking genuine new ground, and which clearly has more room for experimentation.