Author Topic: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. No One Likes Cheap Wine  (Read 7990 times)

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Offline Train of Naught

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Dream The....
« Reply #70 on: October 13, 2016, 01:13:51 PM »
Dream the Electric Sleep - Beneath the Dark Wide Sky (July 22nd)

For fans of: Progressive rock (The Pineapple Thief, Porcupine Tree, Frost*, Jolly)

Another band of whom I have heard nothing apart from their latest album, this time around with something lighter though. This music is the exact bright themed sound that I have been missing in my library for a long time. I mean, I have some great happy music but most of it was very upbeat while Dream the Electric Sleep go for more of a well.. dreamy sound.

What caught my attention right away from the first listen is the mixing. Everything in the mix is brilliantly clear and it makes for a fantastic first impression, even for someone like me who normally does not bother all that much with the production quality.

Sure, the musicianship on this is album, and probably this band in general, is not outstanding, but the riffs are catchy enough, the fills are interesting enough and vocal hooks are enjoyable. Basically there is just this overall pleasant vibe going on from start to finish that makes me unable to say something actively negative about it, it is solid. That being said, nothing on the album stands out in spectacular fashion either, and what you get is a solid hour of music that does not feel innovative in the slightest. If those are factors you can deal with, definitely check out the album, it will not disappoint.

Let the Light Flood In is the earworm of the album. This song will surely stick out like a sore thumb if you are not into the chorus, the vocals in that chorus have very memorable melodies, for better or worse, and get repeated plenty throughout the song. That said, I love it, it is a great single and one of my favorite songs off the album. We Who Blackout the Sun makes for a pretty eerie moodswitch, being a pretty dark and heavy instrumental that is kind of plodding throughout. Moving on to Culling the Herd which is quite easily the coolest song of the bunch. Being the longest song, it has a great break down>build up going on from the middle of the song up until the end, with a groovy guitar solo leading into the finale of the song. The echoed vocals work immensely well here. A lot of the remaining songs have a pretty straight-forward poprock approach and are not all that noteworthy, but I would still like to echo the statement I made earlier of the production quality lifting up this album's overall quality. Black Wind is a nice surprise near the end of the album. When you thought you had heard all this band had to offer (which, judging from this album would not be much but I am not going to have preconceived thoughts about their sound range), they stuff in a pretty dark and heavy track with vocals, and it shows us that this guy is not only good at doing pleasant and delightful vocals, showing his "dark side".

Really no risks have been taken on this album but I am completely fine with that, it is a solid output throughout and something I have kinda been missing in my music up until now. Good album, not spectacular though.

Favorite songs: Culling the Herd, Black Wind, Let the Light Flood In
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Offline Train of Naught

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Whalecore
« Reply #71 on: October 16, 2016, 05:21:18 AM »
Gojira - Magma (June 17th)

For fans of: Progressive/Groove metal with a bit of doom and death (Ghost, Mastodon, Hacride)

As arguably the most anticipated release of 2016 this one felt like a bit of a clunker at first. Joe himself said in an interview that, based on the shortening attention-spans of the mainstream crowd, they aimed for shorter songs, around 4 minutes. Any Gojira fan would probably agree that this is the biggest turn the band has made in their career so far, and with that, obviously, some controversy will see the light of day.

The overall atmosphere that the band has maintained throughout their career persists, they have always been about that dark depressing sound, but this time it feels more genuine than ever. The sheer agressiveness in the riffs that they are so well known for seems to have kind of been replaced with some punchier and more accessible riffs. I find it incredibly impressive that a band with this amount of agression and extreme elements in their music have been able to cement themselves as one of the most popular modern metal groups, even before the release of Magma. This one feels like they felt the need to broaden their sound range a bit and show their wide fanbase what they are capable of while still catering to a big part of their fanbase. Unlike many bands, Gojira still have a very unique approach when trying to do accessible music. That is party of why I love them, in all these years I have not found a single band that sounds like them. Closest I have come is with Hacride but the mood of their music is not anything alike.

The clean vocals, most noticably on The Shooting Star, sound to me like a very accurate combination of Mastodon and Ghost. It is a catchy song and the video made me appreciate it even more, literally one of the best music videos I have ever seen. With the long-anticipated album release I had obviously been spinning Stranded and Silvera beforehand, and while I was initially disappointed with the first one - sounding like some alternative metal song - it became much better in the album context. Silvera was a hit from the very first moment I heard it, agressive and fairly orthodox riffs layered under some catchy lead guitars, good depressing vibes in the clean chants and heavy verses. It has almost everything I love about the band and was almost as good as Born In Winter if you ask me. Magma has achieved the track record of probably having my worst first impression of any Gojira song ever, I outright hated that oddly tuned guitar riff and it continued for pretty much the entire time. Lately I have been digging it a lot more as it has this spiritual feeling to it,  also a very eerie sound that, when executed properly, becomes a very interesting element inside a Gojira song. They take a sharp left-turn as they go from a trippy/psychedelic mood into a fairly agressive string of songs, both being the closest the band has ever come to sounding like djent: I remember being particularly excited about Pray when they teased that intro, I thought we were getting another "The Art of Dying" type song because of the tribal ticking noise. Obviously that was not the case but nonetheless I was impressed, a song with very few initial ideas that still kept progressing throughout. The first time they break down into that heavy section is possibly the most powerful moment of the album. Only Pain has this "love it or hate it" aspect to it, one of the more chaotic songs when you consider how sophisticated this album sounds for Gojira standards. This is the song that those old-timers that hate the new turn Gojira has taken will probably still rave about.

Just like the way the band introduced us to the album, we end off with some more quiet and sinister stuff, Liberation being a unique Duplantier instrumental duet with tribal percussion and somber acoustic guitars. They wrote and recorded this song in memory of their mother who passed away during the process of making this album, with that in mind it might just be the saddest song in the history of Gojira.

A very challenging album that took quite some time to resonate with me. I am still not supporting this new direction 100% and will be interested to see what they come up with next now that we know they definitely have the ability to surprise the fans with something new. Did not quite live up to my expectations but it is still a very good effort.

Favorite songs: Pray, Silvera, The Shooting Star, Only Pain, Low Lands
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Whalecore
« Reply #72 on: October 16, 2016, 05:51:46 AM »
Yes, this album is excellent.
Hey dude slow the fuck down so we can finish together at the same time.  :biggrin:
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Whalecore
« Reply #73 on: October 16, 2016, 06:16:10 AM »
This is easily my favourite Gojira album to be honest. I love the change to their sound, it works much better to my ears.

I reckon this album may creep into the bottom of my top 10 of the year.

Offline Tomislav95

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Whalecore
« Reply #74 on: October 16, 2016, 06:30:53 AM »
At first I didn't like it, now I do but it's not my favorite Gojira release.
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Offline Train of Naught

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Whalecore
« Reply #75 on: October 16, 2016, 11:27:13 AM »
I agree. It is probably  my #3 Gojira album right now tied with L'Enfant but I did not like it nearly as much on first notice.
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Offline Train of Naught

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #76 on: October 18, 2016, 04:35:59 AM »
The Dear Hunter - Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional (September 9th)

For fans of: Progressive rock, rock-opera, symphonic rock (Thrice, The Reign of Kindo)

Just one year after having released my AOTY of 2015, The Dear Hunter were set to release the follow-up album and final piece completing the "rock-opera" part of the act series. (Almost) all the material of both Act IV and Act V had been written last year so the biggest amount of effort was already out of the way, but the fact that these were written around the same time definitely shows, Act V seemingly sounding like the darker counterpart of Act IV.  At this point we have kind of gotten used to what we can expect from new TDH material, but they still manage to come up with a few slick surprises. The neverending thematic reprises throughout the Act series is something we have come to expect from concept albums, but nonetheless this band manages to do it so smoothly that I am still picking out several reprises after having listened to it for at least 20 times, if not more.

The first time listening through this album was from the CD I bought, which was a pain since the programme installed to my computer does not transition consecutive songs properly. Normally I wouldn't really mind but The Dear Hunter is known for their flawless transitions and moodchanges in a matter of seconds. So I actually decided to hold off until the album came out on Spotify, my first listen through I was not too impressed, a couple of standouts but I didn't really care for any of the more standard Dear Hunter songs. Granted, none of the albums except for Act IV clicked with me after the first time listening. Soon enough, the contagiousness of the opening tracks Moon/Awake and Cascade started hitting me, stuff like "Awake" especially being one of the main reasons I love this band so much; they can completely turn around the direction of a song in a matter of seconds and it will still be awesome. I do slightly prefer Cascade because of the awesome chorus and the bombastic ending though.

Then the album continues with a very slow and somber seemingly Pink Floyd influenced song in The Most Cursed of Hands / Who Am I. The level of simplicity in the musicianship on this track is almost as impressive as the complexity of the song's arrangement and structure. Yet again, we see a sharp left turn in the song's finale in the "Who Am I" section. I am impressed at how certain albums had such strong lead singles and still managed to impress me with the remaining songs, and this one is no different. Say what you want about The Revival, I think it posesses the best chorus in the history of The Dear Hunter. "Feels so good to be so bad" has this awesome melody to it that made the chorus even catchier than it already was. Not to forget the great middle section that marks this album's overall dark mood. Melpomene may just be the best ballad the band has done, though personally the tear-enducing Light hits closer to home so that one edges it out for me. That being said, it's impressive that they just produced my new top 2 ballads on this new album, though they do not do full-on ballads a lot.

Next up is what I consider to be The Bitter Suite IV and V: The Congregation of the Sermon in the Silt's counterpart, even though they do not sound anything alike. Mr. Usher (On His Way to Town) has this same goofy attitude and feels very authentic. Mind you, this reminded me a lot of Frank Sinatra, especially the first few lines. Anywho, this song is a lof of fun and I am still puzzling through all the crazy piano parts in the background, another example of how The Dear Hunter never gets old. :lol Transitioning into the very first actual The Dear Hunter duet song, featuring Gavin Castleton who sings the lines of Mr. Usher. The Haves Have Naught is one of my personal favorites and is apparently being referred to on reddit as their most "Disney-sounding" song. :lol I can't argue with that, I could easily see a song with this kind of mood and melodies being featured on Sleeping Beauty or something. Already having mentioned Light, I was kind of skeptical about the two-punch of that and Gloria since I was already familiar with both songs. But both ended up being so so much better on the album, especially following eachother up. Light is the depressing ballad with a slim silver lining to it, and then Gloria is the bombastic anthem being lead up to. The official music video for Gloria was one of the coolest experiences I have had with the band too, I believe it was the first time we actually got to see actors play certain characters of the story, and being able to identify Hunter with a real person is pretty damn satisfying after all this time of wondering. That moment when the soldiers are marching ahead shouting the chorus at the top of their lungs is the most epic moment for sure, goosebumps all over.

Kicking off what I consider the final chapter of the act, The Flame (Is Gone) and The Fire (Remains) make up for the first real TDH epic to me. They have some very strong long songs but they always start off powerful and then end on a lower note. This one, with all the background info to it, is simply epic beyond words. The first chorus kicks in, and you can just imagine the situation building up to the burning down of the church to the line "DO THE HEAVENS EVER SPARE THE CROPS WHEN THE WINTER FALLS", omg. Having said that, I love the transition into The Fire with the last minute of The Flame introducing us to this old western-ish melody, and Ms. Leading's lines in the first chorus are so powerful. I like how it all works musically as well, since it gives us this slow start and strong finale that the band has become so good at lately. The March is another fun song musically, if you want to keep that thought, do not go into the story too deeply as you will find that it is nothing but the opposite. :lol Blood is the aftermath of the things that happened during The March, and makes for a very sinister theatric song that could very well have been a finale to a musical or something like that. A Beginning is just a mindfuck, I'm a bit clueless as to how it actually came to this but I am guessing that it's like a "this story ends where it begins" situation, being the mother of Hunter? Anyway it is a great closer and much better than "Ouroboros" to me. Captures the sound of the album perfectly too.

Apart from the music itself, I never really bothered to delve into the story that much up until Act V. So much interesting twists and turns and such a dark atmosphere overall that it made me curious about what exactly was happening at every point. There is enough diversity on this album throughout but at the same time sticks to the theme very well. Sometimes I think about how this all started and the thought that Casey knew how the story was going to pan out from the very start, and already had a rough idea of how the musical arrangements were going to be composed just leaves me in awe. This man is a mastermind. My favorite band has managed to release an album that might just be my favorite of theirs. The story, more than ever with TDH albums, immensely enhances the listening experience. So to anyone who has not bothered with it yet I advice you to, anyway. We can only guess how these guys will conclude the act series, the only thing we do know is that it is not going to be in the same format as the previous 5 albums. People have been speculating about a live orchestra and even a movie, all I can say is I will be counting the days until I personally own whatever the hell they will come up with.

Favorite songs: The Most Cursed of Hands / Who Am I, The Flame + The Fire (is this cheating?), The Haves Have Naught, Light, The Revival
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Offline Train of Naught

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #77 on: October 18, 2016, 04:47:46 AM »
And here is my new top albums list going from left to right and top to bottom respectively. Changed it from top 8 to top 12 and I think I will end up making a top 16 or 20 as soon as every album has been dealt with. Keeping it to top 12 for now though. Arktis has moved up ahead of Odyssey to the Gallows recently, Gallows is just not as great on its own as it is combined with West. Newcomers from the second batch make up the entire third row with 1749, Gore, Magma and Beneath the Dark Wide Sky, as well as Mariner at #6 and Act V and Stranger Heads Prevail both making my top 3 so far.
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Máster race
« Reply #78 on: October 18, 2016, 05:47:27 AM »
You should install Foobar for gapless playback  :corn

Offline Tomislav95

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #79 on: October 18, 2016, 05:52:16 AM »
Act V is just :hefdaddy I can't remember when was the last time I couldn't resist to listen to certain album every few days (probably in my early DT days with Metropolis part 2).
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Offline Train of Naught

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Re: Máster race
« Reply #80 on: October 18, 2016, 06:50:13 AM »
Yeah same case for me, although there's one album on the list that I return to even more ocassionally than Act V and it's not Odyssey to the West :corn

You should install Foobar for gapless playback  :corn
Good to know!
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #81 on: October 18, 2016, 07:08:47 AM »
What are you using to listen? Pretty much any legitimate media player should be able to handle gapless playback.

Offline Tomislav95

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #82 on: October 18, 2016, 07:24:02 AM »
BTW I recommend you MusicBee. It's doesn't have all those plug-ins foobar does but it's pretty good "out of the box" solution. Oh and it looks great.
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #83 on: October 18, 2016, 08:40:22 AM »
i've tried listening to this twice and i just find it really boring :(

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #84 on: October 18, 2016, 09:49:16 AM »
I've got 5 out of your top 12 and they are all great.

Of course I love, love, love Act V. It doesn't quite top Act IV for me but it's not far off. It will likely be my album of the year tbh, just as Act IV was last year. I just can't really fault TDH, I just seem to connect with everything they do musically. I will probably fall in love all over again when I finally get the deluxe bundle of the album.

Offline Train of Naught

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #85 on: October 18, 2016, 10:30:58 AM »
What are you using to listen? Pretty much any legitimate media player should be able to handle gapless playback.
Just WMP. The issue is not so much the inability to handle gapless playback, but upon selecting more than one or two songs to play them, it sometimes randomly skips tracks or plays them in backwards order. Really weird. Guess I'll check out MusicBee and Foobar to see which I like the most.

i've tried listening to this twice and i just find it really boring :(
:getoffmylawn:

I've got 5 out of your top 12 and they are all great.

Of course I love, love, love Act V. It doesn't quite top Act IV for me but it's not far off. It will likely be my album of the year tbh, just as Act IV was last year. I just can't really fault TDH, I just seem to connect with everything they do musically. I will probably fall in love all over again when I finally get the deluxe bundle of the album.
Act IV will probably always be my go-to convincing-random-friends-to-The-Dear-Hunter album, whichever ends up being my favorite album of theirs a couple of months, maybe years from now, they all kick ass.

I realize that this project might take up longer than a month from now which is fine, because it's meant to cover all things 2016 anyway, and there's a lot of highly anticipated releases of mine yet to be released. Also scrapping some of the albums I was going to include because I don't really like anything about it all things considered. This is meant to be more of a recommendation thread than me randomly reviewing albums I stumbled upon. I don't want to force myself upon albums I don't like just to spread the word.

That said, there's still more than 30 albums left IIRC, including yet-to-be-released stuff.
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Ms. Erable effort
« Reply #86 on: October 18, 2016, 01:58:25 PM »
Act V is still in my Top 5 for this year, and that's saying a lot considering the insane amounts of great music this year. Such a great album - the run from Light to Blood is basically musical perfection. :hefdaddy
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Offline Train of Naught

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Do as I do
« Reply #87 on: October 22, 2016, 02:41:54 PM »
I've been extremely busy with school and will probably continue to be extremely busy. But as far as I'm concerned it's not a huge problem since I there's no waiting list or anything like that, I don't want to churn out rushed writeups cause they will be even worse than my normal writeups. :lol


For fans of: Progressive metal, metalcore, groovemetal, dj0nt (Monuments, Periphery, Fallujah )

Nocturnal Masquerade was one of my very few impulse purchases. Saw it in the record store to my surprise as Toothgrinder seems to be a pretty underground reddit hype that hasn't gotten a lot of attention at all. I think Parama said it was alright and I got it the next day. Of course, I also knew it was the kind of music I would normally enjoy from what I had heard from others, and I hadn't heard a note off it yet.

What can I say, this band has a unique quality, but said quality is to be good at molding various formulas into their own. The different sections do not sound necessarily original, but when put together it is a pretty unique progressive metal experience with some alternative and core elements to it, more of the latter than the former though. This is the kind of modern approach to agressive progmetal that never really fails to interest me on first notice, but also never quite stands out either. The mix has a very fresh modern sound to it which may be offputting in the bombastic blast beat sections since most of us are used to hearing those in a more sludgy sound.

The House (That Fear Built) is the "Periphery - The Price Is Wrong" of the album, meaning it's a full-on aggressive metal opener with some great grooves and extreme dj0nt guitars and harsh vocals. Very solid song and it is a cool opener to hook the listener and introduce us to the core sound of the band. Following up is Lace & Anchor which is refered to by me as that song with the catchy clean chorus, it's a great song with finally a short break from the continuous heaviness. Speaking of which, the song that comes after, Coeur d'Alene is where it kinda gets old. Repetitive djenty riffs and just too much sameyness, getting through this one feels like a chore if not in the right mood. In fact, more often than not, I feel like listening to standalone songs from this album rather than the full album, so I rarely even find myself hearing that song. It has an awesome groovemetal section that lasts for a couple of seconds but it's just not worth it. Blue shows me yet again that the cleans (or cleans with layered harsh vox) are pretty damn good, I wish they would tune down on the harsh vocals a bit because they are really dominant on this record. They do not even have to be crazy good qualitatively, because the clean vocals are being complemented by the multiple layered guitars very well whenever they appear. Dance of Damsels might be the most experimental track, as far as the term "experimental" goes on an album like this. :lol it features almost Sigh-like vocals, or Slice the Cake-like during "The Dark Carnival" if you will. On top of that, the approach it takes here is way more in the vein of traditional progmetal than the more modern stuff in the middle section. I think the "do as I do" harmonies in Diamonds for Gold are kind of awkward and they just repeated them into oblivion, auto-skip. At the end of the album I am reminded why I keep returning to the album, because I would argue that the last three songs on the album are all top 4 material. Dejection / Despondency has quite an ominous nature and offers a pretty well-executed payoff near the end, great grooves and the agressiveness comes in doses here, the song is not too all over the place. Schizophrenic Jubilee has great clean harmonies which is all that I had been missing on the album opener, a mix between this song and The House (That Fear Built) would have been excellent. Waltz of Madmen is not necessarily a fantastic album closer but does the job. Atop, there are some great slowpaced guitar leads here which has been an awful omission all the way through the album, they should pace it down a bit at times.

I don't know what it is, I am not crazy about this album, but I keep returning to it nonetheless. It is just an addictive album with some great songs, but after all this time, none of the songs have floored me. This is just an alright heavy release that I kind of want to have in my collection because heavy music is pretty gud, but I feel like the music industry as a whole can still improve so much on the heavy progressive metalcore side of the spectrum. I do more often than not get the feeling that these bands have to blend all kinds of crazy musical styles in order to keep the listener interested when it comes to the really heavy music, like I cannot think of a band with a fantastic defining sound within this genre. I would say BTBAM but they are more on the experimental side and have moved on from metalcore.

Looking back at how I would approximately rank the songs though, it's pretty disappointing to me that my favorite songs are both the first two and the last three songs. Good thing the album is on the short side because sometimes it does become a bit too much of the same in the middle.

Favorite songs: Dejection / Despondency, Lace & Anchor, Waltz of Madmen, Schizophrenic Jubilee, The House (That Fear Built)
« Last Edit: October 22, 2016, 03:39:25 PM by Train of Naught »
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Do as I do
« Reply #88 on: October 22, 2016, 02:49:43 PM »
pretty much, except the songs i like aren't the songs you like :lol
i like Blue and Diamonds for Gold both a decent bit and the last four tracks always kind of blur in my mind but they're all good, there's just a few "there" songs I always forget about as well. i have literally no clue what couer d'alene or the hour angle sound like
it's an easy album to listen to though, yeah

Offline Train of Naught

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. Do as I do
« Reply #89 on: October 22, 2016, 03:40:57 PM »
Yeah pretty much that. Easy to listen to but not spectacular.

I really like Blue too and it just missed the cut, but I think I've made clear that Diamonds for Gold is pretty far from any favorites list for me. :tup
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. SHOW THEM HOW TO FLYYY AWAYY
« Reply #90 on: October 26, 2016, 06:30:43 AM »
Periphery - Periphery III: Select Difficulty (July 22nd)

For fans of: Progressive Metal, Djent(TesseracT, Monuments, Protest the Hero, Erra)

Modern djenty progressive metal pioneers return with their 4th studio album, Periphery III, ain't that confusing? Just like on Periphery II, Misha Mansoor has contributed with some more Bulb/Haunted Shores demo material on this record, this time from the former. This has has caused a long anticipated rendition of "Absolomb" among many fans. Me? I was just looking forward to some new Periphery material. Was never particularly stoked about the Scarlet demo but the full band effort is glorious to me.

One should not go in expecting a new approach to Periphery's overall style. On the flipside, this album is a very fresh alternative of their earlier output. I don't know about the general consensus, but I was not impressed by Juggernaut and thought they were going to go on a downward spiral.

For instance, we have heard orchestral samples before in the intro of "Have a Blast", but they did not sound as clean and well-placed as on Marigold, which I consider to be the best introduction to the album. The choice to start off the album with 2 brutal metal tracks like The Price is Wrong and Motormouth (great songs) is understandable, but I would have much rather had an intro like on Omega, followed up by Marigold. This song blends Periphery's agression and pop elements perfectly and is never over the top on either count. One thing that bothers me every time I listen to it though, the last 2 minutes are literally filler, I have to manually skip through them every single time and I have no idea why they put 2 minutes of ambient behind a progressive metal song, it does not work guys.

On the contrary, here is probably the most happy sounding Periphery song in all of their career (apart from The Summer Jam, but I like to act as if that does not exist). Inspired by Rick & Morty, The Way the News Goes... will stand out upon first listen for everyone as "that track with the happy blast beat chorus", and everyone will hate it on first notice, I promise. I genuinely hated this song after 1 listen but it has grown on me so much and I can never sit still during it. You know, this is probably my favorite Periphery song at this point, and if not it's at least my favorite of the new album. Remain Indoors has long been stapled by me as the filler track of Periphery III, but after numerous listens under my belt the vocal melodies just became infectuous to the point of not being able to keep my mouth shut while it played. The song becomes somewhat monotonous after a while since it basically repeats the same verse and chorus over and over again without alternating, so that still probably makes it one of my least favorite songs, nonetheless it is a good song.

For the longest time (months), Habitual Line-Stepper was my favorite song off Periphery III. The choir-y vocals in the chorus hooked me from the very first listen, the brutality comes in doses which is always appreciated with this band, and they seemed to have experimented with some "The Bad Thing" type song finales, and this is the one that does the best job at it. They keep interest with some fun instrumentals to connect the both, because it might have been a bit of a disjointed song otherwise. The part starting with "Done waiting" until the end is my favorite thing about the album period. Next up is Flatline, the single I had been the most impressed with initially, and is still among my favorites. One of my favorite things about this band is how they can transition from "GUUUUUILTYYY, now shut the doors and open fire", into some clearly pop-induced segments without it sounding odd. Once again, this is a song that works especially well because the somewhat disjointed final section, the lines are catchy as hell. I myself don't mind when a song connects two sections without any real connection between them as long as they are good sections. Initially, I was a bit disappointed with Absolomb, even more so because everyone else seemed to love it and I just didn't get it. I mean, the bassline that this song is built upon is groovy as fuck, but I had already heard this when hearing Bulb v1 demos. However, this track has proven my love for Spencer's cleans. I am a huge fan of his growls, but only because of the agression behind it, I do not think they are masterfully executed. But Absolomb, and Lune for that matter, show how much he has grown as a musician over the years when you compare it older songs.

The album closes with aforementioned Lune, another fun song, Catch Fire, although this one is more in a quirky sense than anything and it does not work as well as The Way the News Goes...
Furthermore, Prayer Position is just a very solid heavy effort by the band, probably being their most balanced song instrument-wise. No one outplays anyone on this song, the chorus is amazing and would work well in a live setting and the ending is brutal as fuck, exhaling once more before the album ends off on a light note with Lune.

I would be surprised if this album did not end up being among my top 5 by the end of the year. As far as non-concept albums go, this one sits comfortably at #1 right now and I expect it to remain that way.

Favorite songs: The Way the News Goes..., Habitual Line-Stepper, Flatline, Prayer Position, Absolomb
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. SHOW THEM HOW TO FLYYYY AWAYY
« Reply #91 on: October 26, 2016, 06:46:49 AM »
I'll listen to this tomorrow I guess, expectations are pretty low though.

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. SHOW THEM HOW TO FLYYYY AWAYY
« Reply #92 on: October 26, 2016, 07:45:51 AM »
After what you've said I would never recommend anything Periphery to you but if you want to try yeah this album is definitely the best start.
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. SHOW THEM HOW TO FLYYYY AWAYY
« Reply #93 on: October 26, 2016, 07:54:23 AM »
This sound pretty good based on your description, I will check it out after my roulette is over!
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. SHOW THEM HOW TO FLYYYY AWAYY
« Reply #94 on: October 26, 2016, 11:07:00 PM »
After what you've said I would never recommend anything Periphery to you
Yeah, it wasn't really doing anything for me.

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. SHOW THEM HOW TO FLYYYY AWAYY
« Reply #95 on: October 27, 2016, 09:00:29 AM »
 :corn

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. SHOW THEM HOW TO FLYYYY AWAYY
« Reply #96 on: October 27, 2016, 09:10:43 AM »
I liked P3 quite a bit, Catch Fire is their strongest song melodically I'd say. Just such a great chorus.

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. SHOW THEM HOW TO FLYYYY AWAYY
« Reply #97 on: October 27, 2016, 09:45:33 AM »
Yeah that's another great one. Couldn't stand it at first because of the quirky "shotgun"'s and "ha!"'s but I've grown to embrace it. Really love when they have these anthemic lines like you mentioned yourself, also the thread title and "Sure is something when we all catch fire"

This sound pretty good based on your description, I will check it out after my roulette is over!
Thought of sending them, but probably won't. So yeah I'll see if I change my mind but if not P3 is definitely the best start.

Maybe an update tomorrow, depends on how things pan out with school stuff. Will also be out of town from tomorrow afternoon until the afternoon/evening after. Thinking of the new Thrice for the next update.
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. To be, or not to be
« Reply #98 on: October 30, 2016, 03:57:44 PM »
Thrice - To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere (May 27th)

For fans of: Progressive rock/Alternative rock (The Dear Hunter, Glassjaw, Brand New)

So this record has gone a little under the radar it seems. That, or I have simply not been in the right threads at the right time. In any case, I think it's a fine assessment, since while it is a good record, it is not really creative by Thrice standards, just reproducing the formula in a very good way.

It's funny that I can basically listen to Thrice at any moment and it will fit my mood in some way, their music gives me really mixed feelings in small doses, and then they do have the oddball track that's just extremely depressing, but most of it is middle of the road for me. The vocalist sings with a certain level of grit to his voice while sounding like a pretty standard alternative rock/metal singer at the same time, but there's a certain intensity to his delivery that makes the music more interesting than it seems on first notice.

Leading up to the release, I did not really follow the band that much and I still don't. They are fine IMO but I have never gone as crazy about The Alchemy Index as most seem to. Contrarily, I think Beggars is fantastic from start to end and Veissu is very good as well. To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere.. is probably my #2 behind Beggars. The record is a little heavier than their standard output instrumentally, though not as intense. Unlike some of their other output, I could definitely see some of the songs on here being played on the radio, songs like Stay With Me and Death From Above. At times I think the album lacks something to set it apart from the rest, but then again I hear it and it is just enjoyable all the way through, I guess in this case there is no need for vast amounts of diversity in order for it to be great. Granted, when I look back at 2016 and see all of the great continuations of bands I already loved + groundbreaking releases by bands I hadn't heard of, I will probably not pass a second glance at this record, and probably rock Beggars whenever I'm in for some Thrice.

The mixing sounds very modern, it's the type of mixed I've grown to expect from Thrice and vaguely similar bands, and I never have a problem with it. I like having the bass guitar pretty high in the mix like this, because it is an instrument I often neglect when listening to music because it requires some attention to pick out. There are some cool bass licks and this way they do not go unnoticed, Blood on the Sand, while initially not one of my favorites, is made pretty interesting because of that bass.

Seneca remains one of my favorite passages on the album. Yeah, it's a 1 minute instrumental, blame me, it's gorgeous. Wake Up has all I like about Thrice mixed into one song, it's intense, it has great melodies, nice mellow verses, you name it. Probably one of my favorite of their songs as far as the more straightforward songs go. Salt and Shadow is one of the most hauntingly beautiful Thrice songs, it doesn't come close to a song like "Child of Dust", but it has its time and place. Hurricane has a very traditional Thrice sound, one that I enjoy a lot, one of the few songs I could see being on Beggars. Whistleblower is yet another angry song that at this point seems a bit redundant. All the same, it is a very strong track and I feel like it fits very well as a last breath type song, before we go into the last song which is very slow-paced.

Favorite songs: Wake Up, Hurricane, Salt and Shadow, Whistleblower
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. To be, or not to be
« Reply #99 on: October 30, 2016, 04:07:20 PM »
"it's just okay" is about how i'd describe this one. i actually completely forgot about it until just now.

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. To be, or not to be
« Reply #100 on: October 31, 2016, 04:14:51 AM »
I've tried a few albums by these guys over the years but nothing has ever grabbed me by the balls. They basically seem like they tick all the boxes of what I should like, which is why I have tried so many times.

I'll give this a listen at some point. Another day, another album  :lol

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. To be, or not to be
« Reply #101 on: October 31, 2016, 06:20:14 AM »
You should go for The Alchemy Index, which is their best as far as I'm concerned.
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. To be, or not to be
« Reply #102 on: October 31, 2016, 09:37:46 AM »
You should go for The Alchemy Index, which is their best as far as I'm concerned.

Yea, I have given those albums at least one listen. I'll have another go sometime.

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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. To be, or not to be
« Reply #103 on: October 31, 2016, 10:24:00 AM »
Yeah most people prefer Alchemy Index, I prefer Beggars though
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Re: The Groove Train: Train's Top 2016 Albums v. To be, or not to be
« Reply #104 on: October 31, 2016, 10:35:04 AM »
Beggars is the begst