DreamTheaterForums.org Dream Theater Fan Site
General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: Crow on May 15, 2016, 02:39:55 PM
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So I've been working on this for several months now and stressing over tiny point differences to present a full, ranked list of all the purchases I made in 2015. Because I got a lot of music in 2015, and a lot of it is worth talking about. This isn't an official "top 50 albums" list or anything, but I'd imagine if I redid my top 50 list today, at least the top 15-20 would all be on it, possibly even more.
Some statistical overview things; First, my rating scale.
10: Basically perfection. Nothing scored quite this high. I'm not sure I have any single album I'd score this high.
9: Really great, the kind of album I'll still be spinning years from now.
8: Quite good, but not quite great. Pretty much anything scoring this high is recommended.
7: Decent, solid. An album I wouldn't call a disappointment, but not one I'll return to often.
6: Average, by my standards, which are I guess a bit above the 5.0 expected "average"
5: Mediocre or forgettable, below average, but not outright bad.
4: Listenable, but rather boring.
3: Bad.
2: Awful.
1: Unlistenable.
0: Merzbow.
I scored on a .25 point scale; any narrower and it becomes really hard to distinguish scores, any wider and I end up fretting too much over half-point differences like in my roulette.
The overall rankings for the entire list are: 4.0 to 9.75. The most common single score is 7.5. The average is 7.41.
With that, let's start.
68. David Maxim Micic - EGO (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2164570#msg2164570)
67. Chimp Spanner - At the Dream's Edge (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2164719#msg2164719)
66. David Maxim Micic - Bilo 1.0 (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2164865#msg2164865)
65. Gotye - Making Mirrors (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2165486#msg2165486)
64. Negură Bunget - Inarborat Kosmos (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2165492#msg2165492)
63. David Maxim Micic - Bilo 2.0 (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2165587#msg2165587)
62. Crisis - The Hollowing (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2165809#msg2165809)
61. Muse - Drones (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2166261#msg2166261)
60. Between the Buried and Me - Coma Ecliptic (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2166362#msg2166362)
59. Esben and the Witch - A New Nature (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2166593#msg2166593)
58. Kimbra - Vows (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2166993#msg2166993)
57. The Gentle Storm - The Diary (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2167121#msg2167121)
56. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress' (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2167336#msg2167336)
55. Auriga - Reflection of the Magestic (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2167686#msg2167686)
54. Thrice - The Artist in the Ambulance (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2167778#msg2167778)
53. Periphery - Juggernaut (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2168339#msg2168339)
52. maudlin of the Well - Leaving Your Body Map (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2168400#msg2168400)
51. The Contortionist - Language (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2168523#msg2168523)
50. Riverside - Love, Fear, and the Time Machine (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2168625#msg2168625)
49. Schizoid Lloyd - The Last Note in God's Magnum Opus (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2168699#msg2168699)
48. Exivious - Liminal (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2168847#msg2168847)
47. Coheed and Cambria - The Color Before the Sun (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2169046#msg2169046)
46. Karnivool - Sound Awake (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2169151#msg2169151)
45. Intronaut - Valley of Smoke (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2169292#msg2169292)
44. Muse - Origin of Symmetry (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2169599#msg2169599)
43. Lesoir - Luctor et Emergo (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2169812#msg2169812)
42. Serdce - Timelessness (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2170165#msg2170165)
41. Mew - +- (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2170209#msg2170209)
40. Burst - Lazarus Bird (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2170351#msg2170351)
39. CHON - Grow (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2170654#msg2170654)
38. Negură Bunget - OM (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2170714#msg2170714)
37. Destrage - Are You Kidding Me? No. (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2170878#msg2170878)
36. Deafheaven - Sunbather (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2171219#msg2171219)
35. East of the Wall - Redaction Artifacts (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2171284#msg2171284)
34. Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words With Tones) (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2171714#msg2171714)
33. The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2171797#msg2171797)
32. Alcest - Les Voyages de L'âme (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2171897#msg2171897)
31. Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase. (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2171935#msg2171935)
30. Saor - Aura (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172005#msg2172005)
29. Baroness - Yellow (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172081#msg2172081)
28. East of the Wall - Ressentiment (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172119#msg2172119)
27. Intronaut - Prehistoricisms (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172238#msg2172238)
26. Being - Anthropocene (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172351#msg2172351)
25. Caligula's Horse - Bloom (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172406#msg2172406)
24. Skyharbor - Guiding Lights (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172517#msg2172517)
23. Baroness - Red Album (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172745#msg2172745)
22. Thank You Scientist - The Perils of Time Travel (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172779#msg2172779)
21. Ne Obliviscaris - Portal of I (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2172887#msg2172887)
20. Baroness - Green (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2173086#msg2173086)
19. Rosetta - The Galilean Satellites (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2173139#msg2173139)
18. múm - Finally We Are No One (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2173259#msg2173259)
17. Obsidian Kingdom - Mantiis (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2173477#msg2173477)
16. Alcest - Écailles de Lune (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2173537#msg2173537)
15. Dordeduh - Dar De Duh (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2173661#msg2173661)
14. Ne Obliviscaris - Citadel (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2173938#msg2173938)
13. Leprous - The Congregation (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2173989#msg2173989)
12. David Maxim Micic - Bilo 3.0 (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2174064#msg2174064)
11. Intronaut - The Direction of Last Things (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2174158#msg2174158)
10. The Hirsch Effekt - Holon : Agnosie (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2174218#msg2174218)
9. Bent Knee - Shiny Eyed Babies (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2174313#msg2174313)
8. David Maxim Micic - ECO (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2174415#msg2174415)
7. Enslaved - RIITIIR (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2174489#msg2174489)
6. Alrakis - Alpha Eri (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2174546#msg2174546)
5. Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2174696#msg2174696)
4. Cursive - The Ugly Organ (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2175005#msg2175005)
3. The Ocean - Pelagial (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2175082#msg2175082)
2. Thank You Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2175183#msg2175183)
1. East of the Wall - The Apologist (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47258.msg2175382#msg2175382)
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#68: David Maxim Micic - EGO
#16 for 2015
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2095974671_10.jpg)
Out of all the releases in David Maxim Micic's discography, this one seems the most... pointless. There's a progression from Bilo 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0, an evolution of his sound. Here, we get... what has to be B-sides from his previous releases, almost.
It's just so... flavorless. So standardly djent. The only moments of flavor are on the third track, Disorder, and they feel wholly unnatural at best, obnoxious at worst; the vocal bits in this track are really grating. If the flavorlessness of this release isn't what does it in though, it's definitely the fact that the last track is literally just reprises of the first two. Nothing new or original for almost a third of the album's runtime. Not that much of this was original to begin with.
That's not to say it's terrible music. I actually like Define a decent bit, it has solid atmosphere to it and if it were a little less heavy it'd fit in pretty well on ECO, this EP's companion release. The main theme of this one actually gets reprised on ECO, too. Develop is mostly just boring, a lot of chugging riffs with the only notable moment being a melody in the background that also appears later on ECO.
Disorder at least has a nice guitar solo in its second half, despite being generally unlistenable otherwise. Devise is at least smart enough to take the better parts of the two tracks it reprises, but it doesn't stop it from being pointless; and that's not even getting to the awful compression that happens near the end of the track that can't possibly sound like anything but awful to everyone who's listened to this release, unless I'm crazy.
I don't think this is an absolutely awful, unlistenable release or anything like that. It's mostly inoffensive djent from an artist who can do much better. At the same time, even for the genre you can do much better than this, there's really no reason to waste your time with a mediocre release.
Favorite Track: Define
Least Favorite Track: Disorder
4/10
DTF Addendum:
Well, I've probably already lost Sacul.
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Although I agree that it's probably his least inspired release, I really enjoyed EGO - there are some pretty creative twists here and there, and the ending is fantastic imo.
You already lost me on your roulette, and it's been a while :P
Anyways, looking forwards to the rest of the list :tup
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you should've sent less 6.5 with +.5 bonus songs in my roulette, then
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I'll send more sax on the next one :P
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#67: Chimp Spanner - At the Dream's Edge
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1388302291_5.jpg)
The past year, my interest in djent had already been waning. The sound is kind of limited in what it can really do, and you can only hear so many djenty riffs before they get old. I'd say this was the album where I finally decided I wasn't going to bother looking deeper into the genre, but it was more like a last attempt to find something I can really get into.
I actually went through a fair number of artists in search of a djent album to get into, and what I heard from these guys engaged me more than any other band I found, evidently, since this was the album I ended up getting. And I will say that, if you take these songs on their own, they're each solid enough. But it's just... an hour of very samey djent music with occasional bleepy synth bits or calmer atmospheric bits really fails to hold my interest.
It's really hard to even talk about individual tracks because a lot of them are hard to differentiate. Uhh. Galaxy Rise and Ghosts of the Golden City get note for being purely ambient tracks with some nice bright atmosphere. Bad Code has a really dissonant bleepy synth line at the start which I don't really like. The rest of the song doesn't really stand out at all though. Far From Home is notable for having a really terrible guitar tone for its leads. All Good Things is a nice cooldown track at the end of the album, one of the more interesting ones for sure.
And look. I'm not trying to be too down on this album, because there's not really a lot I dislike here either. If you haven't heard much djent and this is one of the first albums you get, all the better for you, you'll probably enjoy it. And I'd say I prefer this over Animals As Leaders, there's at least some hint of emotion and soul in this album during the softer bits. And the riffs aren't awful as much as they are just generic. But... there's just not a lot for me here, and I doubt I'll revisit this in the future.
Best Tracks: Supererogation, At the Dream's Edge, All Good Things
Worst Track: Far From Home
4.25/10
DTF Addendum:
I don't remember what 90% of this album sounds like anymore, and I've listened to it probably 10 or so times in total, so... yeah. I think I only got this because I still marginally cared about djent and needed something to hit the $35 free shipping thing on Amazon, which is now $49 because Amazon wants to take all of my money. It's just... particularly meh.
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Yeah it's not really special an album, but it has like one or two memorable tracks I guess.
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this is gonna be the negativity power hour for a few days but i promise we'll get to good cool stuff eventually
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#66: David Maxim Micic - Bilo 1.0
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2905819901_10.jpg)
I can't really be too harsh on a nearly-5-year-old debut EP considering how far Micic has come since this EP, and it's not like it's a bad EP either, just a bit bland and lacking the ambition of his later work. It's far more djent than progressive metal, but there's still a pretty strong melodic focus throughout that keeps it mildly interesting. In general though I wouldn't say I think Micic has much of a talent for djent riffs, at least not here. None of them are that memorable and when they're in the foreground is when the music really starts to get boring.
The songs all have a solid main theme running throughout them, Part II and IV notable for having themes that would later be used in his later work. Though the theme of II is probably my least favorite of the four, the bagpipes don't really add to the song in any real way other than "haha wacky flavor". It's still probably the most ambitious track on the EP for its flavor alone, but that's not saying much.
The other three parts are mostly just... there. All feel too long for how little they do, though they're mostly not actively grating. There's a really bad and grating synth solo in Part III, but that's about all there is to note.
Really, as a whole, this is far from bad music. At the same time, it's not particularly interesting or unique music, and it's not great for what it is either. It's more just an early stage of a musical style that would continue to evolve over the course of future releases, but I'd say it's more for those curious about the artist's earlier work than a good starting point or a good listen on its own.
Favorite Tracks: Bilo Part I, Bilo Part IV
Least Favorite Track: Bilo Part III
4.75/10
DTF Addendum:
Okay I promise I'll stop picking on djent at some point.
But... not quite yet.
I don't really mind this one at all though, I just don't get much out of it.
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Bilo part IV is still one of my fav songs by David, and I've been aware of him since 2012, but yeah, nice EP yet one of his weakest ones.
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yeah but i can just listen to Where Is Now? and get basically the same experience, but better
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Following, though I think you'll understand that your glowing endorsements so far haven't exactly compelled to check out any of this stuff. :P
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I'm really not a fan of djent to be honest, with special regards to those exaggerated polyrhythms and 0-0-0 clungs (Tesseract - Proxy.....). It's just that some bands succeed to cover it up better than others I guess.
I already purchased DMM's discog when he put them on sale but haven't heard any of them yet.
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well I totally forgot to post one thiside morning so I'll post two when I get home, not that either is gonna get much discussion tbh
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Anyone want to make bets on how long it takes for us to get to stuff Parama actually likes?
How about bets on how long it takes for us to get to something non-djent?
How about bets on how quickly The Astonishing shows up?
I'm betting 35, 63 and 61, respectively.
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it's around 45, 65, and the Astonishing is a 2016 album :lol
fwiw there's djent in the top 10, so
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Ah, totally forgot that this was 2015 only :lol
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Following~
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While I love bands like TesseracT and Periphery, I must say that instrumental djent is mostly really boring. I agree about At the Dream's Edge, it's a pretty meh album. Ego I like, I felt that that was a different enough album for me to enjoy. But it's still instrumental (mostly) djent, which like I said is pretty boring in the long run.
I barely know Bilo, so I can't comment on that one.
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#65: Gotye - Making Mirrors
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/95/Gotye_-_Making_Mirrors.png)
I feel a little bad reviewing this, since I can tell this is the kind of album that's simply just not for me. But at the same time, my opinion doesn't seem to stray too far from the general consensus either, so it's more than just me here, right? Artsy, low-key indie pop is not a genre I have much experience with though so you can feel free to take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
And yes, I like Somebody That I Used to Know. I think it's been talked into the ground, but it's good. I bring it up since Kimbra, the featured guest artist, is actually why I got this album. Well, that, and that I found it at the visit to a used CD store I made last year. It was there, it was cheap, I was curious, so why not?
Really, the thing about this album is that most of it passes in a pleasant haze, and I don't mind it when it's on, but I also don't remember most of it after it's done. The first four tracks are basically the best the album has to offer, and while there's only one or two tracks I don't care for much, there's not a lot here particularly memorable.
The segue from Easy Way Out into Somebody is one of the more memorable moments for how naturally it works, and both tracks are pretty good on their own. Eyes Wide Open also has a nice darker vibe to it and solid atmosphere throughout. And even Smoke and Mirrors is pretty alright, a solid laidback jazzy feel to it but it could've probably been a bit shorter. The closer Bronte is also pretty strong, probably the most emotional presence of the entire album.
The rest is... hmm. I Feel Better and In Your Light are two bright peppy pop tracks that I have no real use for, just outright not my thing. But they're fine. State of the Art... what the hell. Who thought that deep-pitched robot voice as a good idea. It's a shame since the weird instrumentation of this track is pretty cool, but I just can't get past those vocals. Too long, as well. Don't Worry is just 3 minutes of tediousness that never goes anywhere, and the following two tracks are pleasant but particularly forgettable, no real flavor to them.
At the end of the day though... this album has never really stuck with me much, even if the majority of the songs are fine enough and only one of them is really "bad" in my eyes. The songs end up sounding a little samey despite the experimentation being done on this album, and there's nothing really -that- good that makes me want to come back to it. I don't really regret getting this album, but I highly doubt I'll come back to it in the future, either.
Favorite Tracks: Eyes Wide Open, Somebody That I Used to Know, Bronte
Least Favorite Tracks: State of the Art, Don't Worry, We'll Be Watching You
5/10
DTF Addendum: I don't really have much to say. I doubt many people here care about Gotye and frankly I only cared about him because of Kimbra, so...
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#64: Negură Bunget - Inarborat Kosmos
(https://direct-ns.rhap.com/imageserver/v2/albums/Alb.124293148/images/500x500.jpg)
Technically over half of this EP came on the copy of OM I got, and the opener track is just a rougher version of Înarborat off of OM, so really the only track I don't "properly" own in some form is the shortest. So I figured, hey, why not just add this to my list of 2015 stuff, since I basically own it.
I mean, it's a bit pointless for me to talk about this. The first track is Înarborat. I like Înarborat, but I don't really love it. There isn't a lot different here other than the bass being more audible, but the song being produced a lot rougher and I think missing some of its instrumentation (haven't done a side-by-side comparison to tell).
Uprising Follow is the other metal track, and it's... fine. I don't think it's as interesting as Înarborat, the only really flavorful moment is a weird synth break at 4:10, and the production again lets it down a little, but there's some solid metal here and a few good riffs, I particularly like the one that comes in around the 6-minute mark, pretty driving cool riff.
The other two tracks are shorter ambient pieces, but pretty vastly different. Cint de Sursur has some warm synth stuff going on with subtle folky touches, by the end it's a full-on folk piece. It's a pretty nice break between the two heavier songs and would probably fit really comfortably on OM, might like it more than the ambient pieces on that album really. Whereas Vaiet... look. There's only so much disturbing, unsettling kind of stuff I can take, and when it's going to be this unpleasant... yeah. I can barely listen to this track, the screaming vocal stuff is just painful. Legitimately might be my least favorite song off any release I got this year.
The flow of the EP is pretty solid, it starts off with the folk of Wordless Knowledge, gets heavier, has a warmer break, more heaviness, ending quiet but unpleasant. Can't really fault it in that regard.
Overall though this release is... definitely not for me. The aspects of Negură Bunget I find myself liking the most are the folkier moments, and while there is some decent metal on Uprising Follow, it's probably more "standard" than any track off OM. And of course, the closer just really brings the whole thing down for me. It's an alright release, I suppose, but not one I expect to revisit much in the future, if ever.
Favorite Tracks: Wordless Knowledge, Cint de sursur
Least Favorite Track: Vaiet
5/10
DTF Addendum: There's basically a trend running through most of the albums at the bottom of the list in that I really didn't intentionally seek them out and just ended up getting them through coincidence or as part of something else. I also don't know if that's a valid excuse, though, since #4 on the list has basically the same story behind it.
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So I figured, hey, why not just add this to my list of 2015 stuff, since I basically own it.
I mean, it's a bit pointless for me to talk about this.
I like how you answered your own "why not" in the next sentence.
I don't know either of these artists so I don't really have anything useful to say but I appreciated that.
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#63: David Maxim Micic - Bilo 2.0
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0970826595_16.jpg)
I feel this release is definitely a notable step up from Micic's first outing, but still stuck somewhere between the quality of Bilo 1.0 and 3.0; not quite as refined, but a lot more ambitious at the very least. Still, I don't think this EP is at the point where he's making really good music, yet.
This release basically has all the same problems the first Bilo had. All the songs save for the opener feel too stretched out, the djent riffing is never particularly interesting, and each song has a solid theme that gets kind of beat into the ground during its runtime.
There's a lot more nonstandard elements here to keep things interesting, at least, Electric Fields is heavily electronic, and Rise and Shine has some electronic elements to it as well; there's some voice samples in Strange Night which are kind of flavorful I guess; the Serbian main theme of Mbinguni Amina and some nice horn flourishes to give the song a lot of swell.
And really, the first two tracks and the last track here are all more interesting than anything off Bilo 1.0; on the flipside, Along For a Ride and Strange Night are probably worse than anything off Bilo 1.0, both being rather generic djent chugcore. Even the good tracks here still feel a bit too stretched out though. Rise and Shine is probably the only track here that I'd want to listen to on its own, it's pretty solid.
Even though I do think this is a step in the right direction for Micic, there's still a lot of pointless overindulgence and a human element that's definitely not too present here. If I didn't already know what Bilo 3.0 sounded like I probably wouldn't have been too excited for it at this point.
Favorite Tracks: Rise and Shine, Mbinguni Amina
Least Favorite Tracks: Strange Night, Along For a Ride
5.25/10
DTF Addendum: I wish I liked this more but like previously stated instrumental djent is always just kind of dull to me. Though three of the tracks here are pretty solid, none of them are really great and this barely leaves much of an impression on me. Anyways I promise I'm done picking on Micic for at least a little while now.
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#62: Crisis - The Hollowing
(https://www.metalblade.com/us/covers/Crisis-TheHollowing.jpg)
This is exactly what I think of when I hear the term "Sludge Metal". It's grimy, it's dark, it's sluggish, it's kind of gross. In that regard, this album has met my expectations for it flawlessly. But... simply being what I expected isn't what wins my highest favor.
I'll start off saying that I kind of like Karyn Crisis' vocal style, while also still disliking it somewhat as well. Her harsh vocals sound okay, but they're not fantastic. She's definitely a diverse vocalist though, two different times of harsh vocals on this album as well as some lovely clean singing. The lyrics are also generally quite distinguishable, a quality that not a lot of harsh vocals possess.
Another problem with this album is that most of the songs are built around two or three riffs without a lot of variation to them, and while this isn't a massive problem on the shorter tracks, it does make the longer ones drag somewhat. As well, the music often feels a bit... thin. The guitars aren't thick enough to pull off the heaviness the music really calls for, and the bass is kind of underplayed too.
The biggest problem though is that... these songs just go nowhere, and they all have a somewhat similar sound to them. I've spun this album a lot and I never remember anything about it other than "Mechanical Man is the one that's really energetic, Vision and the Verity has that riff I don't like, After the Flood and Come to Light are softer, more atmospheric tracks". That's... basically it. The songs end up kind of indistinguishable from each other, to the point where trying to do song-by-song writeups before a full review turned out pointless.
It's not like it's all bad or anything, I wouldn't even really say any of the songs are "bad" but none of them are really that good, either, save for the two atmospheric tracks. And there are other songs with some decent atmospheric bits; Vision and the Verity has a few nice spots in the middle, and Surviving the Siren has more atmosphere than the album tends to have, more cleans too.
And it's not like the riffs on the album are bad either, but mostly they just all sound the same. I'm not actually sure on this 100% but I have a feeling every song on this album is in the same key, I'd be surprised if more than two or three weren't.
If I had to point out standout heavier tracks, I'd say Surviving the Siren has the best sense of progression of any song here, as well as a higher bass presence and probably some of the better riffs on this album, it's a pretty solid song even if it's not largely different from the rest. In the Shadow of the Sun is practically prog metal with all its time signature changes and tempo shifts, though it loses a bit of momentum by the second half, where little to nothing new happens.
Overall though, this album probably suffers from age more than anything else. It's the oldest album I got in 2015 (and yeah it was only 18 years old, but I don't dig into the past much to begin with) and maybe it'd sound a lot heavier and intense if I was there at the time it came out, but by today's standards I don't feel there's much worth coming back to here.
Maybe it's because I'm just not into pure sludge metal by itself, the bands I like tend to be either the proggier ones (Intronaut, East of the Wall, The Ocean) or the more atmospheric ones (Isis, Rosetta). This has some of both of those, but the straightforward sludge is the primary element at play in the end. If you're more into sludge than I then you'll probably get more out of this album than I do, but for me I guess I had higher expectations than I should've.
Favorite Tracks: Surviving the Siren, Come to Light, After the Flood, In the Shadow of the Sun
Least Favorite Tracks: Fires of Sorrow, Take the Low Road
5.25/10
DTF Addendum: I'm not really sure why I got this other than "I listened to it once and it seemed decent" but it wasn't even that, so. Maybe I was tricked by the atmospheric songs. Nobody cares about this anyways so whatever :lol
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Nobody cares about this anyways so whatever :lol
:tup
It's hard to say much about albums the OP himself hates/dislikes :lol I would maybe agree but I don't listen to anything defined "sludge metal", as far as I know.
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Yeah, I'm waiting for the stuff that doesn't suck to start appearing.
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the stuff that doesn't suck is gonna start appearing before the rest of the stuff that does, because i have awful taste :neverusethis:
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I quite like Bilo 2.0, and Mbinguni Amina is fantastic :P
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Mbinguni Amina is sort of my issue with Micic in microcosm: some really brilliant stuff juxtaposed with some really standard-issue stuff.
I dunno, I've tried several of his albums, and that's always the impression I come away with.
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I'm followign this so I can eventually win your roulette :neverusethis:
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#61: Muse - Drones
#15 for 2015
(https://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/5326912c-3b61-495f-a474-0d385e68023a/b4af9ba3-09c7-4c04-8947-4fdce653191b.jpg)
It's pretty clear that Muse are past their prime and are never going to come close to their earlier albums. But I'm of the mind that even at their best, they were never truly great. Absolution is pretty good, and Origin of Symmetry isn't far behind. And Black Holes is a decent album, but a mixed bag between good songs and kind of mediocre ones.
I think Drones more resembles Black Holes than any of their other albums, albeit without the experimentation that ran throughout most of the album. This is probably the least ambitious Muse album, honestly; The Resistance and The 2nd Law were both pompously overblown and even in their failures (especially with the latter, a truly awful album) they still seemed to serve a purpose. What purpose does Drones serve, though?
The worst this album has to offer is its two short interludes that are just samples. Drill Sergeant is laughable and Muse just outright shouldn't be invoking JFK at all, especially not with cheesy strings and annoying guitar chugging.
It's a shame that the attitude of Drill Sergeant bleeds through to the rest of the album, too; especially Psycho, which is just a colossal failure of a song only redeemed by a solid groove, but far from Muse's best. The lyrics in general feel overblown and preachy, but ultimately irrelevant.
Dead Inside and Mercy both feel like single bait songs, being pretty poppy and mostly inoffensive besides the wailing of "DEAD INSIDE" on the former, a silly "edgy" phrase that's hard to take seriously. The Handler and Defector are also easy to group into the same category, both being driven by bass grooves and both being pretty solid, but nothing that special. The former slightly has the edge on the latter, but not by much. Aftermath is a very pretty ballad that's also kind of cheesy, and while I don't find it especially strong it's still one of the better tracks here.
I guess I'm making it sound like I don't find any songs here that strong, which is untrue; Reapers is probably the best song they've done since Black Holes, the noodly tapping guitar works surprisingly well, the song has a ton of energy to it, and one heck of a groovy chorus riff. The slower groove of the outro is cool too, really no complaints about this. And Revolt is a song I feel like I should hate for how cheesy it is, but it's also quite a fun listen. The bright main chord progression is really strong, and the faster chorus is a great singalong moment. I'm aware this song definitely isn't the greatest but it brings a smile to my face every time. I also like, of all things, the a cappella outro track Drones. It's pretty haunting and doesn't outstay its welcome, it's definitely an interesting way to close the album.
And then we get The Globalist, the big "epic" of the album, and supposed sequel to Citizen Erased. That's kind of pissing in the face of the latter, honestly, since this track is a disaster. It's just a messy string of various ideas that are all fine enough on their own I guess but there's just no transition between anything and no part of the track really relates to any other part either.
The album overall is a pretty rocky ride though, some low points, some high points, and a lot of meh in-between. It's definitely a step up from their previous, but the high points aren't generally thaaaat good either. I doubt I'm going to be buying another Muse album in the future though, unless it gets wildly positive reviews or something. Just no interest left in this band, after a string of disappointments.
Favorite Tracks: Reapers, Revolt, Drones
Least Favorite Tracks: Psycho, The Globalist
5.25/10
DTF Addendum: Yes, Origin of Symmetry is in my 2015 collection too, for the record. I finally got around to getting it after like, 8+ years :lol
Honestly this is the first full album on the list that doesn't generally bore me, but it also makes me cringe more than the ones below it.
Also, easily, easily their worst album cover. At least the previous two albums had pretty artwork.
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#60: Between the Buried and Me - Coma Ecliptic
#14 for 2015
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Coma_Ecliptic_cover_art_by_Between_the_Buried_and_Me.jpg)
Not satisfied with my first review of this album. I was too bitter towards it and too exhausted to put up with it by the end. But I don't think I really gave the album enough credit. I mean, no, I wouldn't call it a good album even still, but it's not awful or anything. So I'm just going to redo this one fresh.
So. The main problem of this album... the cool moments are pretty sparse, with a lot of the album being merely "alright". Good as background noise but not much else. And it's too long. Almost 69 minutes and by the end it's reused a lot of the same tricks enough that it stops sounding remotely fresh. And it draaaags, even the (longer) Future Sequence, which I don't exactly love, doesn't drag like this album does.
There's a lot of complex, sometimes wacky music on this album. But a lot of it lacks any sense of purpose, and the album is almost completely lacking in emotional depth or any real sense of power. You have the choruses of The Coma Machin and King Redeem/King Serene, the sludgy endings of Turn on the Darkness and Rapid Calm, most of Option Oblivion and the back half of Life in Velvet as far as power goes. Emotional presence is even worse off, I only really get much out of King Redeem/Queen Serene's intro and the piano half of Life in Velvet, and even then they're not that strong.
The Coma Machine is a weird track in the context of the album because it's rather underwritten in comparison to the overwritten rest of the album; it relies too heavily on its chorus and a lot of the other segments repeat. On top of that, Life in Velvet exists mostly to reprise the better parts of this track in different contexts, leaving them more worn out while also kind of doing them better.
A lot of the songs here aren't very cohesive, aside from the shorter ones; and even then Option Oblivion is the only shorter track that's really all that adventurous. Aside from The Coma Machine, the rest of the tracks here are sprawling messes of ideas loosely stitched together to vaguely form songs.
Honestly, a lot of the strongest moments here are cleaner or at least not-so-metal bits. There's a kind of punchy bit in the middle of Famine Wolf that's way too brief, there's most of the second half of Turn on the Darkness that has a nice jazzy feel and an actual buildup, a jazzy break near the end of The Ectopic Stroll, a spacey ambient break in Rapid Calm, and a nice clean break about three-quarters into Memory Palace. All some of the more notable highlights (seeing as they're all bits I mentioning combing through this album just now).
The other stronger moments here are the ones that are just plain fun. Especially The Ectopic Stroll with its playful piano line and kind of cheesy vocals during its early verses, just really fun to listen to. There's also a few moments with nice groove, the "chorus" to Turn on the Darkness is kind of Opeth-y in its groove and I quite enjoy it.
There really aren't really any actively bad moments on this album, either, just a lot that bore. Out of the 70 minutes, I'd be fine with completely dropping 40 of them, at least. The lack of quality at points is really what makes this album drag more than anything else, an absence of good more than the presence of bad. But really, I still feel I was being overly harsh on this album before; it's mediocre at worst and tolerable at best. Not an especially respectable status for an album to be, I'm sure, but there's enough cool moments here and nothing really offensive that it's at least worth a listen or two, but... perhaps not much more.
Favorite Tracks: Option Oblivion, Life in Velvet, Turn on the Darkness, The Ectopic Stroll
Least Favorite Tracks: Rapid Calm, Famine Wolf
5.5/10
DTF Addendum: I always feel like I should be rating this lower than I have it here, and in fact it did used to be lower, but... the decent amount of really cool parts is what saves from being really unbearable, but overall I really have no desire to ever revisit this. I doubt I'll get another BTBAM album at this point, after the previous two disappointments.
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Memory Palace and The Coma Machine should really be among the best tracks. That said, this album bored me very quickly too. It's an exhaustive listen and to be honest not a very good one either.
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Coma Ecliptic is my favourite BTBAM album. It's amazing. Famine Wolf, Turn on the Darkness, Rapid Calm, Memory Palace, Life in Velvet... so many good songs. The flow is superb too.
Sadly, I kinda have to agree with you on Drones. The title track is really cool, and The Handler and Reapers are great songs, but the rest is just sorta... there. Globalist is a patchwork of cool ideas with no cohesion, and the rest is just business as usual. However, I will have to disagree with you on The Second Law, because I think that that is one of Muse's best - I'd probably put it at #2 in their discog. It's varied, it's fun, what more do you want?
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Ouch, this one is rough, but I can kinda see where you're coming from.
I've skimmed through the BTBAM thread when getting into them and I saw a lot of reactions showing that they kinda liked the album but could see it growing really quickly, and so it did for most. I didn't like this one at first but it's now my go-to BTBAM album, lots of fun moments, great slow sections too in Node, KR/QS intro and Dim Ignition for instance. I lose a bit of focus near the end so I'll agree on you with the length, I woulda been fine with 60 minutes.
Your favorites/least favorites are objectively wrong though :tup
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Personally I thought Coma Ecliptic was awesome and maybe their best since Colors.
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Personally I thought Coma Ecliptic was awesome and maybe their best since Colors.
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I now have 5 BTBAM albums and although I like all of them I'm not at th stage where I LOVE any of them. I think The Great Misdirect is probably my favourite.
I think your review is kind of how I feel about the band in general. I feel they have some great sections in their songs and albums but I don't feel they are personally consistent enough for me. I know that I still need to give a few albums more listens as there is a lot going on but still. I couldn't ever see them becoming one of my favourite bands but I do mostly enjoy listening to them and know they still have room to grow for me.
Bands like Native Construct and Haken, for instance, grabbed me and wouldn't let go. They have both released albums I can't stop playing, BTBAM?.......not so much.
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That's funny because I love BTBAM, would probably say they are the best progressive metal band out there, but I find Haken & Native Construct to be very average. Not terrible, the new Haken album was alright for example, but not music I will keep listening to or anything.
So in short, OPINIONS. They can be very different. :P
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I find that if we're talking about progressive metal on the extreme end of the spectrum then, for me, Opeth blow BTBAM out of the water everytime!!
Haken are more in the Dream Theater vein obviously and I love that style but as a more extreme progressive metal band BTBAM don't do a lot for me. There are just a lot of bands that do it better.
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Opeth would be up there too. I think the clean/harsh vocals gives Opeth and BTBAM an advantage because they can really explore a wider spectrum within prog metal whereas bands that are more like Dream Theater (with just clean vocals) will never get THAT heavy.
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what more do you want?
less dubstep, more interesting songs
also yay i have sown the seeds of discord. it's not gonna get better from here, i promise. #57 and #50 especially are gonna be tons of fun
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#59: Esben and the Witch - A New Nature
(https://cdn2.thelineofbestfit.com/images/remote/http_cdn2.thelineofbestfit.com/media/2014/esben_and_the_witch_-_a_new_nature.jpg)
This album... the main problem I have with it is definitely because it sounds "empty". I was actually led to believe otherwise with No Dog being the track I found this band through, which is easily the most full-sounding song on the album and probably the most intense, too. I would still say that it's a great song, but as for the rest of the album? It's just a little too sluggish and empty for my tastes.
A lot of the songs just take too long to build up to anything and end up too repetitive overall. Even the tracks I like can be like this. Press Heavenwards! is a solid track but it could've definitely been cut down. The Jungle is waaayy too long, and while its first movement has a decent build, it could've been faster; the second movement is pretty pointless overall, only really in the third movement does the song find a good pace. Blood Teachings takes about 70% of its runtime to really go anywhere with its buildup, and the payoff isn't even great when it gets there.
And that's if the songs have any buildup at all. Dig Your Fingers In is a somber track that explodes near the end, Those Dreadful Hammers starts at full force and has nowhere else to go after, and Wooden Star just doesn't go anywhere period. I'll at least forgive Bathed in Light with how short it is, but it's a rather pointless 2 minutes as well.
Davies really outsings the instrumentation here at a good number of points. She doesn't really have a "softer" mode, her least intense and most intense moments aren't that far apart. This allows here to lend a lot of swell to heavier moments, but in the quieter moments creates a disconnect between the vocals and music that's hard to get past.
Don't get me wrong, I don't find any of this music "bad", just at best decent to average and at worst kind of mediocre. I don't even feel that strongly about No Dog, it's a good song but I've heard plenty of better ones in just the past year alone. The sound of this album as a whole is pleasant, if not a bit monotonous, but I wouldn't ask someone to turn it off if they were playing it and I was in the room.
Mostly my issue with this album is that, even at its best, it's not amazing, and most of the songs range from "meh" to "alright", which is not really what I'm looking for in my music, nothing here really gives me a strong desire to return to it and as a whole the album is kind of monotonous and empty, with a few songs being stretched way too thin and filled with way too little.
Favorite Tracks: No Dog, Press Heavenwards!, The Jungle
Least Favorite Tracks: Wooden Star, Bathed in Light
5.5/10
DTF Addendum:
I've sent No Dog once in roulettes but I don't remember to who and it didn't do very well, which is fair because even it isn't that great, just... the best the album has to offer. I really wish I liked this one more than I do, though, but sadly most of the back half especially is pretty dull.
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I've given BTBAM several chances, specifically Colors, which everyone seems to love, but it usually annoys me too much after about 30 seconds so I have to switch to something else.
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I bet #57 or #50 is gonna be Juggernaut or one of either Alpha or Omega (if you even got these) and I'm gonna be real mad about it
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Future Sequence and the debut are tied for my favorite BTBAM album. Coma Ecliptic really hasn't done much for me so far.
It may just need more listens, though. BTBAM albums tend to take a real long time to grow on me.
Haven't heard of this Esben deal.
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I bet #58 or #50 is gonna be Juggernaut or one of either Alpha or Omega (if you even got these) and I'm gonna be real mad about it
1. no
2. both are pretty popular artists/albums here that just did little for me, periphery isn't that popular comparatively :lol
3. also it's just juggernaut
4. never heard of any alpha or omega
5. what are you talking about
6. sorry shadow but i don't really like future sequence much either, it's like a 6.5/10 or so i guess
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ok. then it's Pale Communion and Hand. Cannot. Erase.
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pale communion is a 2014 album, actually.
i need to go back and listen to that one more though, the last time i did it'd grown on me
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I really like Pale Communion at this point. This album was a grower indeed.
I expect The Gentle Storm at either #58 or #50. Parama is known for his ridiculously bad taste after all.
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This thread is funny and I like it :)
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Currently re-listening to the BTBAM albums I have (Colors, CE, TGM, TP:HD, TPII: FS) to try and work out why they don't do a great deal for me.
In regards to Pale Communion, I like it a lot more than Heritage as I found that album to be a huge let down. Pale Communion picks things up again, and I appreciate the evolution of the band, but after the run of albums they released from Still Life-Watershed I couldn't help but be disappointed by Heritage.
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Pale Communion is great.
Never checked Coma Ecliptic. I'd like to like BTBAM more but I just don't get them apart from TGM and (parts of) Colors.
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I've tried Pale Communion several times since I'm not into heavy Opeth, but it just bores me.
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opeth with a side of other stuff: the thread
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To comment on Drones, definitely the biggest disappointment of 2015 for me. I liked the album at first listen, but after a few spins it became obvious that it doesn't have any staying power at all. I listen to Dead Inside, Reapers and The Globalist sometimes, but I find the rest of the tracks to be incredibly mediocre. Definitely their worst album.
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remind me to update the 2015 albums with their 2015 ranking, I've been forgetting :lol
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Pale Communion is great.
Never checked Coma Ecliptic. I'd like to like BTBAM more but I just don't get them apart from TGM and (parts of) Colors.
Not getting into other BTBAM albums is obviously not an indicator that you will like Coma Ecliptic, but I think that it's probably the most accessible of their albums, so I'd still give it a try.
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HCE should finish fairly low considering it wasn't that great
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#58: Kimbra - Vows
(https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0168ebab9117970c-pi)
NOTE: This a review of the US release of this album.
I sort of knew going into this album that it wasn't going to be a "for me" kind of album, generally bright pop that's very song-oriented and not very album-oriented as a whole, to the point where two completely different versions exist and neither is the "proper" version. Mostly, this is more the kind of album where I tend to listen to the songs by themselves more than the album as a whole, and that doesn't hold true of all the songs, even, something like half of them I really dig while the other half isn't as strong.
I think this album is at its strongest the weirder it's being, honestly. A lot of the more "standard" songs are alright but never resonate with me as much as the "weirder" ones. Come Into My Head, especially, which I've never heard anything like, somewhere between hip-hop, jazz, and pop. Settle Down, as well, is instantly memorable, and while not as "weird" definitely has tons of personality between its a cappella moments, bright atmosphere, and compelling atmosphere.
Not to say the more "normal" songs can't work. Something in the Way You Are is a great more downbeat and atmospheric track, Cameo Lover has (aside from the clever title) a nice fun energy to it, Sally I Can See You is another gorgeous and atmospheric track but with a bit more energy, The Build Up is much more somber in comparison to the rest of the album and makes for a good album closer, and the bonus track Warrior is probably the most standardly "pop" track of the bunch, but a damn solid one at that.
The problems I have with this album come down to nitpicks quite often, though. For one, Two Way Street. There's this piano line throughout that feels slightly offbeat - on the album version, but not the Sing Sing Studios version. It feels like a recording or editing mistake, mostly. There's randomly a tiny jazz number tucked away at the end of Old Flame for no real reason, and while it's fine... dunno, feels out of place. Good Intent has some vocal doubling that I just don't care for. Posse's tone is... off. I don't really know why she sounds so aggressive here, it doesn't match with the lyrics at all.
The rest of the songs... ehh, not even really worth mentioning much. Yeah, some of these feel like filler. Old Flame is nice but nothing that special, Plain Gold Ring doesn't really feel like it adds much to the album, and Home is just wholly forgettable. Not bad, just kind of meaningless. Considering the US release is the second rendition of the album it feels strange to still have filler tracks, especially when one of them is brand new from the previous version.
The album as a whole is a bit of an inconsistent experience, there's a number of tracks that are quite good, a handful of other tracks that are pretty decent but not that special, and a few tracks that mostly just bore or annoy me. Kimbra is a talented singer, though, and she's making really interesting and unique music that suits her voice quite well, so I can't fault her for that. I think I respect this album more than I actually like it, but it's not an album I find myself returning to often, just the specific songs I find most enjoyable.
Favorite Tracks: Come Into My Head, Settle Down, Sally I Can See You
Least Favorite Tracks: Posse, Good Intent
5.75/10
DTF Addendum: I feel kind of bad ranking this as low as it is because there are actually a handful of songs on here I quite like, sure, but as an album... yeah, just can't say this works for me. I could probably take the best tracks from the two different versions and rearrange them to make a better album on the whole, but the fact that I could do that totally proves my point :lol
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#57: The Gentle Storm - The Diary
#13 for 2015
(https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/The-Gentle-Storm-The-Diary.jpg)
The funny thing about this album... I got it shortly after it came out, listened to one version or the other for about two weeks, and then abruptly stopped listening to it and haven't touched it since, almost a year ago now. And it's not like it's bad, but it's just...
God, Arjen sure knows how to suck the life out of interesting instrumentation. I thought that his music having a kind of lifeless sound in general was just because he did a lot with synths and distorted guitars, and in some cases that was the point. But I'm pretty sure this album isn't intending to sound lifeless, yet... it does, quite a lot. Not all the time, certainly, there are still songs that have some life in them. Shores of India and The Storm especially, but Endless Sea sounds pretty good too. But end the end, if music like this sounds lifeless, it's boring. Plain and simple.
Anneke is a decent vocalist but if I'm gonna be honest, I've never been a huge fan of her, not on Arjen's previous stuff, not on Devin Townsend's stuff with her, and not on this album either. She's very technically sound but her voice never seems to be particularly emotive, or at least always sounds quite dry to me. She's good on the same tracks that have more alive instrumentation, and drier on the more boring songs.
I also think the decision to have two different version of the same album is, while novel, mostly just a gimmick in the end. I don't see why Arjen couldn't have just picked one or the other and put together a full album of those, or maybe a mixture of both the gentle and storm sounds on each track. Instead of segregating it into one or the other, just have them both at the same time. Your fanbase is going to be fine with that, Arjen, didn't you learn anything from the Universal Migrator albums?
This isn't helped by the fact that a lot of these songs aren't even that different on one version or the other. Endless Sea is good in both versions but the Storm version is literally just a heavier version of the Gentle version. The Greatest Love, The Storm, Eyes of Michiel, and New Horizions are all not notably different between the two versions aside from heavier instrumentation on the Storm version, which doesn't really transform the songs that much.
There are certainly some tracks where there's a big difference, though usually it's because one of the versions isn't as exciting as the other. The Moment most notably, the Gentle version just doesn't have enough weight to it and the Storm version blows it out of the water completely. On the other hand, the laid-back, jazzy vibe of the Gentle version of Heart of Amsterdam is completely lost on the Storm version, though there's at least a decent bass groove substituted in.
Two songs where both versions are equally good yet still quite different are Shores of India and Cape of Storms, most notably on each song's chorus. The chorus of the Gentle versions on these songs are very quiet and pretty, the most subtle parts of the songs. And on the Storm version, the choruses are both explosive and intense. It's a cool contrast between the two, and probably the only case where both versions are equally valid while still having their own identities.
A fair number of the songs, especially those on the back half of the disc, really don't have much that make them stand out from the rest, though. Endless Sea, while I do like it as an opener, doesn't have a lot of unique flavor, nor does The Moment, the "ballad" of the album, but they at least have more than The Greatest Love, Eyes of Michiel, Brightest Light, New Horizons, or Epilogue. Really, at the end of the day only four of these tracks are that special, and naturally, yes, these four are the best tracks. The rest is just the same sound repeated across half the album.
The Storm stands out mostly for having far more energy than any other track on the album; there's a nice frantic feel to both versions that creates a lot of tension and makes the song a fun listen. That's really about where the album ends though, since the last four tracks on both disc are really redundant by the time they roll around, none of them have anything to add. Considering that you have to listen to them all twice to get through the album once... yeah, really easy to get sick of them.
Honestly, at the end of the day, this isn't an awful album. But it was a bad idea from inception. No, Arjen, two discs doesn't make the album twice as good. Pick and choose the better versions of each track next time and put together one really good, interesting album, instead of two decent ones. It's definitely unique in Arjen's category for the total lack of synths alone, as well as the very pure sound of the Gentle disc, but it may be my least favorite Arjen release to date, at least of the ones I've heard.
Favorite Tracks: Shores of India (Both), The Storm (Both), Cape of Storms (Both), Endless Sea(Storm), Heart of Amsterdam (Gentle)
Least Favorite Tracks: Eyes of Michiel (Both), Brightest Light (Gentle), The Greatest Love (Both)
5.75/10
DTF Addendum:
Yeah, this one... is just really frustrating for me. Maybe there's a good album in here somewhere but I've kind of given up on liking Anneke at this point, her voice is inoffensive at best and boring at worst. I think an issue I overlooked here is that this just doesn't hold up on relistens - especially with listening to both versions and thus getting really tired of the song's main melodies and arrangements. I got tired of this pretty dang fast and basically didn't spin it again for almost a year until I got around to relistening for the review.
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You're crazy :loser:
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I don't think I've listened to this since it came out either. I thought both discs were monotonous and bland, and it was too Arjen-by-the-numbers.
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yeah i'm waiting for evermind to show up
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My #2 album of 2015. Absolutely don't agree the songs sound lifeless - I think it's the most lively album from all Arjen's side projects.
Don't get the part about Anneke too, she sounds awesome here to my ears, much better than, say, on 01011001. I don't hear how she's emotionless and dry, especially on the songs you listed as an example. Seriously, I should've stopped reading after you noted that Anneke sounds dry at The Moment.
Shores of India and The Storm are my two least favourite tracks on the album too. The Storm version of The Storm is especially bad, worst song on the album by a mile.
I should probably stop following this list at this point. Hopefully you didn't check Rattle That Lock out.
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i never said she sounded dry during The Moment, honestly that's probably one of the better tracks here vocally :lol
also yeah you won't find anything you like near the top of this list anyways so
and no i did not check that out.
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Well, you said
She's good on the same tracks that have more alive instrumentation, and drier on the more boring songs.
and in the beginning, you said Shores of India, The Storm and Endless Sea are good, and the rest of songs are boring. So I unconsciously surmised you lump The Moment to "more boring" songs because I expected the worst after reading that first paragraph.
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I'll hunt you for Kimbra! :flame:
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Yeah. As much as I love Arjen's stuff, this did nothing for me at all. I found it incredibly boring and as you said, lifeless.
wow wtf I actually agree with Parama for once
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Arjen bores me with everything he does, so I never even checked this one out.
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#56: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress'
#12 for 2015
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Godspeed_You!_Black_Emperor_-_Asunder,_Sweet_and_Other_Distress.jpg)
I mean, what is there to say about this album? It's basically one song, for starters, and 16 minutes of the album is just pure drone. And it's... fine, I guess. It's probably the weakest GY!BE album, but that's kind of a hard moniker to live up to. It's not overlong, either, only 40 minutes in length.
As far as the tracks themselves, the first track is very good. It's a long groove that's constantly evolving and building, layers upon layers with a nice dense atmosphere. Basically classic Godspeed, and while it's nothing groundbreaking for them, I still dig it quite a lot. It wouldn't be my go-to Godspeed track or anything, but, solid.
The next two tracks, though... eehh. I dig drone at times, but Lambs' Breath is just kind of boring... I don't really like the thought of holding one bassy note for over two minutes, as this track ends on. Why. Some of this is alright, sure, but as a whole I'd skip it. Asunder, Sweet is an improvement, there's more happening and there's a build to the track, but having it after the slog of the previous track lessens its effectiveness considerably. If you cut out or shortened Lambs' Breath I think this would work a lot better than it does.
Piss Crowns Are Trebled is the longest and final track, and probably the best. It's more adventurous than Peasantry, which was, while decent, mostly just one long groove. Whereas Piss Crowns has a nice flow to it and gets pretty intense by the end. Again, I wouldn't say it's a top-tier Godspeed track, but it's still pretty enjoyable.
But then you take this entire thing as a whole, and realize that at its best, it's below par for Godspeed, and at its worst, it's tedious and boring. It's far from a bad release, but I never got too into this one and I don't think I will either, it's not worth it.
Favorite Tracks: Piss Crowns Are Trebled, Peasntry or 'Light! Inside of Light!'
Least Favorite Track: Lambs' Breath
5.75/10
DTF Addendum: I really don't mind this album at all, it's just low from everything else being at least a step or two above. It doesn't annoy me, it doesn't really bore me either aside from Lambs' Breath, but it doesn't really interest me either.
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Definitely their worst record indeed.
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Way too low. It's a great song (album) even if it doesn't quite reach the highs of their other albums.
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Yeah, it shouldn't be this low though. While I agree that it's a disappointing listen if you're coming fro their older material, it's not exactly crap either.
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5.75 is "just slightly below average" y'know :lol
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It's more like a 7.5 / 10 IMO
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If Coma Ecliptic sets the standard for a 5.5/10 album, I guess 5.75/10 is a pretty amazing score
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I can't decide whether the more amusing part of this exercise will be the part where Parama kills all the sacred cows in the 40s and 50s, or the part where the top ten albums are all ones that nobody has ever heard of. :lol
I like The Gentle Storm. I don't outright love it, but I like it. The main problem it has is that the tempo almost never changes. All the songs are pretty much in the same mid-tempo, which is probably why it feels a little same-y throughout. I think it's a good release, but it could be more varied.
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7.5 is "quite good but not quite great", so, yeah, not even close to that for me
tbh I had a bit lower at first but bumped it up last minute so :lol
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It's more like a 7.5 / 10 IMO
This. But it's still probably my third favorite record of theirs, behind their debut and lift your skinny fists - Yanqui really bores me, and Hallelujah and Zero Canada are ok.
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zero canada
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It's not necessarily my least favorite either. It's between that one and Yanqui, but I still like both quite a bit, they're just not AS amazing.
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#55: Auriga - Reflection of the Magestic
(https://img.discogs.com/j9cOnUWPxLnoBiysqg_G_w3Z2po=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5398084-1392376896-8140.jpeg.jpg)
After discovering Alrakis and really liking their sound, I looked into other spacey black metal stuff and found this album. And I liked it when I first listened to it... honestly I still do like it, but I can definitely acknowledge that, yeah, it's not really great or anything. I think I only even got this one because it seemed pretty interesting and I likely wouldn't have gotten the chance to purchase a copy ever again. All three ambient tracks are... "fine", but never really go anywhere, they just meander about until they end. They're pretty soothing and pleasant though, uneventful though they may be. I guess IC 410 might be slightly better than the other two but really they're also pretty interchangeable.
And the black metal itself is... alright. Solitude in the Infinite Space is pretty evocative of the black metal sound I like, nice and atmospheric. Transcend Into Obsolescence is a bit too intense for the sound, I feel, but it does change the pace of the album a little. Bearer of the Wondering Stars is alright too, though the tremolo guitar is almost too clean, I don't really want to be able to hear individual picking. All of the metal tracks have pretty solid atmosphere to them, layers of ambience in the background and generally several layers of guitars too.
Honestly, what this is more than anything else is background music, which makes it hard to review properly. It's definitely inferior to Alrakis, but for what it is I still get a fair bit of enjoyment out of it. Its biggest crime is being a little flavorless and a little tedious, really.
Favorite Tracks: Solitude in the Infinite Space, Bearer of the Wondering Stars
Least Favorite Track: IC 405
6/10
DTF Addendum: Welcome to the "nobody has ever heard of this and nobody will care about this" power hour. And... yeah, that's fair.
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So let's play a game, because why not.
If anyone can, by some stroke of magic, guess my top 5 right, I'll buy an album of your choice with my next music haul and give it a review :corn
If someone can get like 3 of the top 5 right I'll at least check out an album recommendation on youtube or something I dunno.
Also this offer stops applying... let's say... once we hit the top 30. That sounds fine.
Perhaps I should go pull up the list of all the albums I got though to make this more fair :lol
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#54: Thrice - The Artist in the Ambulance
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/3d/38/0a/3d380ad0dab2dfce75fbc566b36291d6.jpg)
As someone who adores Thrice (Beggars is one of my favorite albums -ever- and Vhiessu isn't that far behind), I should love this, right? It's Thrice at their most intense, at their heaviest.
...that's the thing though, have I ever cared for Thrice at their heaviest? Vhiessu works for me because of how the heavy and light are balanced out. Even the Fire disc of The Alchemy Index isn't just pure energy like this album. It's kind of... overwhelming, and unrelenting. All the songs blend together into a wall of noise with little breaks, there's none of the softer breaks that make Thrice good at their best.
I can't even say any of the songs are bad, and some of the songs are actually quite good. Under a Killing Moon has a killer riff that I absolutely adore and it's a pretty cool song beyond that. The title track is probably the most dynamic song on the album as well as the catchiest, probably my favorite.
The songs do have the benefit of being all rather short. The longest track just scrapes the 4-minute mark, and the shortest is 2:41. There's really no time to get tired of any of the songs with how fast the album moves. At the same time, the short length keeps songs from leaving much of a lasting impact. It's not like Thrice would go on to make 10-minute epics in the future, either; the longest song on any of their albums is only 6 and a half minutes; and I can't say short song length is a "problem" necessarily, but... ehh.
I don't know, this album is just frustrating to me since it's such a blur of an album. Like I said, none of the songs are bad, but at the same time only a few of them are really good, and most of them I wouldn't be able to tell you what they sounded like once the album ended. Of the ones I didn't mention before... Cold Cash and Colder Hearts stands out partly since it's the first track and does have some dynamics to it. Stare at the Sun has one of the better choruses on the album and some quieter verses for dynamics as well. Blood Clots and Black Holes has a decent riff at the start but that's about all that I ever remember from it. The Abolition of Man has a cool outro that I think would've worked really well as an album closing bit.
Really though, right now this album doesn't do much for me. Maybe I'll come back to it in a few years and love it. I'll probably still spin it from time to time since it's by a band I adore, but for now I acknowledge that it isn't really that great as a whole, passable at best.
Favorite Tracks: The Artist in the Ambulance, Under a Killing Moon, Stare at the Sun
Least Favorite Tracks: Can't differentiate them enough to tell
6/10
DTF Addendum: I mean, an album I'm not really that into by a band I love doesn't make me love the band less. I just wish I liked this more :lol:
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Guess at two of those top 5 albums (I'll think of more later): Bent Knee - Shiny Eyed Babies and Brand New - Devil & God
Have only heard the 3 most popular (aka Beggars Vheissu and Alchemy Index) and only own Beggars, though I'll agree that I prefer the not-too-heavy Thrice so I probably wouldn't like this too much either.
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Looking at the three albums I'm posting tomorrow and WHEW BOY tomorrow is going to be... really fun :corn
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:corn
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The Direction of Last Things?
And I have no idea in what year you got The Apologist but it seems like you've only been fanboying over it since like the end of last year even though it came out in 2011. If you somehow purchased it in 2015, that's the #1
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I like The Artist in the Ambulance but I would probably rank it as my second to least favorite Thrice album. Compared to the others (except for the debut) it never clicked that hard for me.
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I forgot to post this morning again lol
maybe I'll just do two today I feel like both of the next two are gonna generate a decent amount of discussion
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#53: Periphery - Juggernaut
#11 for 2015
(https://www.cmdistro.de/images/products/large/56652_635542494715255570.jpg)
This review is for both Juggernaut discs, as they really need to be considered as one album, it's sort of pointless to have them split up. Really I can only assume they did that just so they could sell two albums instead of one, since there's barely over 80 minutes of music here, and definitely time that could've been cut from one disc or the other to push it down to a single disc.
And this album was hyyyyped to hell and back. I didn't even pay attention that well and knew they'd been building up to "Juggernaut" for ages. So naturally, I'm going to need to have high expectations if the band wants me to have them that badly. So no, expectations not met.
And heck, not even met during the time of last year where I was still into djent, much less over a year later at the point where I've basically declared djent a dead landscape for myself. It didn't take long to write this off as "solid, but nothing spectacular or even very unique". Not to say it's bad, either. I probably wouldn't have listened to it as much to try and make it click if it was outright awful, but... I can't say I'm very pleased with them after this, and I doubt I'll be getting another record from them in the future, since Periphery has never been one of my favorite bands to begin with.
At this point in my life, I'm generally over the sound of the vocals on this album, both the cleans and the harsh. The cleans are very breathy and whiny, and the harsh vocals lack any real power behind them. There are at least a fair number of good vocal melodies throughout the album to make up for the weakness of the cleans, but I basically never notice the harsh vocals. The majority of the better vocal melodies are on the first album, tracks like A Black Minute, Heavy Heart, Alpha, and Psychosphere, though Priestess on Omega has some nice ones too. There's some good choruses and bridges in songs that are otherwise not that spectacular, too, 22 Faces and Rainbow Gravity come to mind here.
There's also a lot of recurring musical themes here, perhaps too many, especially where a few of them are kind of pointless. For one, the track Reprise on Omega is a pointless reprise of A Black Minute that just stretches out the album by another minute and a half, and without it the album would practically fit on one disc. There's also a short pre-echo of Psychosphere at the end of The Scourge that, while nice, feels rather pointless. The most meaningful reprises come at the end of Omega, where first A Black Minute and then Alpha are reprised, the second of these being a really powerful and chilling moment, easily the best point of the entire album, and it ties both discs together quite nicely.
The album does feel kind of messy though, as per Periphery standards, with short segue tracks arbitrarily at the end of songs they have nothing to do with, and in a lot of cases the better than the songs that precede them. The pointless heaviness of MK Ultra ends with a nice jazzy break that I'd love to see developed into a full song. The Scourge ends with a melody from Psychosphere as previously mentioned. And Hell Below, the other pointlessly heavy track, ends with another cool jazzy little break that segues into the track after.
A brief moment to compare and contrast two similar songs; The Event is a short track based around one single riff that's kind of cool on its own but feels underdeveloped, like a demo that just got left on the album 'cause, hey, why not. Whereas Four Lights is another short instrumental, but with a variety of riffs, a strong groove to it, and even a short quiet break, to make it feel like a fully developed song. It's kind of baffling that they can get it both completely wrong and quite right on the same disc.
Aside from the usual djent fare that ends up being mostly forgettable (22 Faces, The Bad Thing, and Graveless especially come to mind, all being completely flavorless tracks that don't add to the album), there's a lot of poppier tracks with focus on brighter melodies and catchy hooks. Alpha is probably the pinnacle of this, with the best chorus of the album easily, and some bright synth in the intro, though the back half of the song feels like an extended outro that drags on too long. Heavy Heart is nice and poppy for the first half and really pretty good, with a more relaxed but still pretty bright back half. Priestess is probably the softest song on either disc, but still has a nice build throughout it and the extended groove of the outro is pretty enjoyable as well. A Black Minute, as well, has obviously the band's favorite vocal lines, with how often they're repeated, and a nice moment of group vocals in the middle, a good starting build to the album. Stranger Things, even, is a fair bit brighter, and with a decent amount of atmosphere, though it gets a lot more praise than I feel it deserves, it's good but not outstanding.
The "epic" of the album, Omega, deserves at least a few further comments, as well. The first third of the song is pretty straightforward and not too interesting beyond the softer and more atmospheric bit, but the triplet groove and energy of the middle third puts it back on the right track, and there's some gorgeous stuff between this and the big build at the end of the track. Though the last minute is a tacked-on heavy bit that doesn't do the song any favors and feels particularly pointless, don't know why they couldn't just end on a high note.
Psychosphere is easily the best track, but not for any particular reason other than it just exemplifies all the strengths of the album - a good vocal melody that strays away from the whinier side of the vocals, some really groovy riffs and a thick atmosphere to the whole track. It doesn't sound like much, but it's really a joy of a track.
Alpha as a whole definitely runs circles around Omega, which doesn't really get good until the last two tracks, with Alpha being pretty solid throughout, but then taken as a whole, having the weaker half as the second half makes the album really start to drag until it does hit those last two tracks. And at 80 minutes straight of djent, it can be kind of grueling to sit through as a whole, the album is definitely less than the sum of its parts.
Still, I wouldn't say it's a bad album, just a decent one that was way more hyped than it should've been, and shows a band who's content to stagnate without pushing their sound further, even if they can still produce some solid tunes while doing so. I think a 60 minute cut of the album with the fat trimmed would've made for a much more compelling experience overall. The story isn't *that* important and honestly it's a pretty bad and cheesy story, not even worth mentioning beyond that.
Favorite Tracks: Psychosphere, Omega, Heavy Heart, Stranger Things, A Black Minute
Least Favorite Tracks: MK Ultra, Graveless, The Bad Thing, 22 Faces
Alpha: 6.25/10
Omega: 6/10
Overall: 6/10
DTF Addendum: There really are some cool moments on here but overall I prefer P2, and even then that isn't a perfect fantastic album either. I don't think I've ever been fully "in" to Periphery and odds are I won't get any more of their albums but this one is still alright, just maybe a bit bloated and with a few too many dull/unmemorable spots.
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Vows is great, but Sally I Can See You and Something In the Way You Are are way worse than anything else on the album, and were only included for the US version (and just became bonus tracks on the original), which is why it's garbage that they repackaged the album proper for the re-release.
I prefer Behemoth (or Asunder blah blah blah) to Yanqui and Zero Kanada, and potentially even their debut, yet I barely even listened to the studio version, as I had a live one that I thrashed before the album was ever released that I actually liked better than the album itself anyway.
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I personally love Juggernaut and think it's probably Periphery's strongest effort to date. Especially Omega.
Overall I can't fault you for having an opinion, just two things I noticed: No power to the harsh vocals? Spencer's screams are really really powerful in a way I basically never hear anymore.
Also, is Hell Below "pointlessly" heavy? It fits perfectly for what's going on in the story in that moment, so I'd say it's the opposite of pointless. There's really quite an actual point to it.
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#52: maudlin of the Well - Leaving Your Body Map
(https://www.metallibrary.ru/bands/discographies/images/maudlin_of_the_well/pictures/01_leaving_your_body_map.jpg)
I'm... still not sure how to feel about this album. It's a big mixture of stuff I like and stuff I don't find myself caring for too much. It's probably more personal taste than anything being "wrong" with the music... or maybe it's just overhyped for what it is. I dunno.
And there's not even a lot I can say about this album. The most notable and consistently better parts of the album come in the cleaner moments. This is helped by the fantastic acoustic guitar tone of this album, one of the best I've ever heard, as well as the various non-rock instrumentation; strings, horns, clarinets, probably some others I'm missing there too.
Stones of October's Sobbing starts right out the gate with a very lovely clean bit that's pretty detached from the rest of the song, both Interlude tracks have lovely pretty instrumentation and serve as nice breather tracks, though 3 is a fair bit better than 4, The Curve That to an Angle Turn'd has a very nice section in the middle with female vocals, Sleep Is a Curse has a slightly folky vibe to it and it's pretty catchy to boot, and Monstrously Low Tide has probably the best moment of the album with the "I saw the shore" bit, lots of atmosphere only accentuated by the reverb-drenched backing vocals. The song also ends with some dreamy and watery delay-heavy guitar, very nice ending for the album.
The comparative weakness of the album often comes in its heavier moments, however. Stones of October's Sobbing, especially, is just a total mess past the intro; all the instruments sound like they're playing in different keys when they're not outright dissonant, there's not enough swell to back up the harsh vocals, and it's just a plodding mess. Bizarre Flowers/A Violent Mist is probably the most consistently heavy song on the album but only parts of it work, while others feel forgettable. The Curve That to an Angle Turn'd has some sludgy heavy bits that I don't care for, and a climax at the end that abruptly runs out of momentum. Riseth He, the Numberless (Part 1) has basically nothing interesting about it period, neither in its softer moments or its heavier ones.
That's not to say the metal on this album is all bad, 'cause it isn't. Gleam in Ranks has a nice long build to it the whole way through that gets quite intense by the end and its energy is what really keeps it going. There's also a lot of little touches in the song, the piano runs, the weird cleaner guitars, the synth swells, they all add to the atmosphere. Riseth He, the Numberless (Part 2) has a kind of grating and overlong intro that sounds like bad video game music, but after that has an actually pretty decent heavy moment with the trade-off bit between some synth-heavy atmosphere and a crushing riff, though the song relies a bit too heavily on its few parts overall. That's... about it as far as memorable heavy bits go, though.
At this point I've basically already covered everything of note that stood out to me good or bad, though. There's... not a lot to say about this one, I really well and truly don't understand the huge hype behind this album or band. Sure, it has its brilliant moments, but it has just as much uninspired or forgettable moments and a few truly terrible ones too. It's good for a few listens but it's an album where I tend to like sections more than entire songs, and not an album I find myself wanting to revisit very often.
Favorite Tracks - Gleam in Ranks, Monstrously Low Tide, Sleep Is a Curse, (Interlude 3)
Least Favorite Tracks - Stones of October's Sobbing, Riseth He, the Numberless (Part 1)
6/10
DTF Addendum: Honestly I wish I liked this more than I do, but... just can't get that into it. The good tracks here are really quite good though, just a shame the album is watered down with unpleasant or boring ones.
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Lol the bad thing is my favorite Periphery song
Parama being parama
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For what it's worth, it's rare that harsh vocals actually add a lot for me; aside from a few rare cases they're never more than "nice to have accompanying a heavy section" and can also be "just there" or "actively unpleasant" and Periphery's tend to be "just there" for me but ehh.
Also yeah I guess maybe if I cared about the story but musically it just feels pointless. I'm generally not a fan of heavy for the sake of heavy though. Like, there's a song on one of my top 5 albums on this list that slots into that category and brings the album down a notch for me (partially because it doesn't even nail its attempted heaviness that well) and aagh
also it's me reviewing djent in 2016, which i am just out of patience for, so
like i have somehow amassed almost 60 albums already in 2016 (because i'm crazy) and
the earthside one is arguably a little djenty at times but none of the rest have really any djent influence to speak of, like at all
i'm just so over it :lol
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MotW are really good but personally I prefer Kayo Dot
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Juggernaut is the best album of 2015. :loser:
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oh come on, Leaving Your Body Map is good. While Bath is way better, it's definitely not as bad as you make it seem.
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oh come on, Leaving Your Body Map is good. While Bath is way better, it's definitely not as bad as you make it seem.
I agree with this.
Strangely, even though I like both Leaving Your Body Map and Bath quite a bit, I have never gotten into anything else that Toby Driver has done. I think I should rectify that, any recommendations by you guys?
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oh come on, Leaving Your Body Map is good. While Bath is way better, it's definitely not as bad as you make it seem.
I agree with this.
Strangely, even though I like both Leaving Your Body Map and Bath quite a bit, I have never gotten into anything else that Toby Driver has done. I think I should rectify that, any recommendations by you guys?
Choirs of the Eye is by far his best album IMO, but might take some time getting into. Hubardo might be the best Kayo Dot album to start with if you're coming from a MotW background. The first track might be a bit jarring, but the album as a whole has some incredible progressive metal tracks, both with harsh vocals and without. "And He Built Him a Boat" and "The Wait of the World" especially are amazing songs that are more "easy listenable" and more straight forward progressive rock/metal than something like Choirs of the Eye which is more Avant-Garde and very "out there".
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#51: The Contortionist - Language
(https://www.crashandridemusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/the-contortionist-language5.png)
I think this album is, more than anything, a case of me having expectations and the album wanting to be something different than what I wanted it to be. And perhaps that's my fault, since I had listened to the whole thing before I actually purchased it, but it may also be because there really aren't a lot of moments on this album that stand out.
But what I expected was a heavily atmospheric album with some djent inspirations, but the metal being mostly sidelined. And while this holds true for a fair number of the tracks, there are also a few that focus prominently on the metal aspects with the atmosphere being sidelined instead. There's really only a few tracks that strike a good balance of the two, as well.
The most balanced ones would be Language I: Intuition, which is a pretty constant build from front to back, Thrive, which stays at a pretty consistent dynamic level with a break in the middle, and The Parable, which is nothing but a long build from clean to intense, but not too intense.
It's when the album gets really metal that my interest starts to wane. Language II: Conspire spends 2/3rds of its runtime focusing on heavier riffing, only returning to atmosphere near the end. Integration and Arise are both heavier tracks in general but hit some intense patches near their middle/end sections, both of which I don't find particularly welcome. On an unrelated note these two are pretty similar in that they have weird, jagged, clunky grooves to them that feels more like rhythmic showboating than any sort of interesting musical idea, it just doesn't sound great. Ebb & Flow has an arbitrary brief bit of heaviness around the 2-minute mark that really takes me out of an otherwise pretty solid song.
It's just. They need to move past this sound entirely before they can really start making engaging music, because the end result of what they do here is a confused mess. I won't fault them for variety, as most of the songs here are fairly distinct even with a core sound to this album, but the loud/soft variety really needs to be shifted more in favor of the soft if they want to find a more cohesive experience overall.
Another thing that happens fairly often is abrupt cuts to ambience to close out a track. Both Primordial Sound and The Parable end this way, without giving a strong sense of natural resolution, and seeing as The Parable is the last track on the album, it really needed a better sense of closure. It's weird, too, since the previous track, Ebb & Flow, actually sounds quite like an album closer the whole way through, and actually pulls the ambient ending off well by fading into it and having the vocals carry over. I'm really surprised this one wasn't the album closer, it feels like it should've been.
I've done enough complaining that you'd probably think I don't like this album, which is untrue; I do like it, but I'm far from loving it at the same time. There's a lot here to like though, regardless. When they get the atmosphere right they absolutely nail it. Moments like the entirety of The Source, an absolutely gorgeous track, the watery delay of Language I: Intuition, the bass-driven groove in the middle of Thrive, the earlier sections of Primordial Sound, the textured intro and ambient outro of Ebb & Flow, and the build of The Parable are all excellent softer atmospheric parts.
And it doesn't end there; there's a lot of strong heavy atmosphere here too. The heavier moments of Language I: Intuition with harsh vocals doubling over the cleans is actually a cool effect, it's an intense atmosphere that works. The last third of Language II: Conspire is excellent as well, very cathartic. Thrive is, the whole way through, quite atmospherically intense, rarely quiet but never feeling overly crushing either. Primordial Sound builds into a pretty intense feel, if not especially compelling. The last minute of Arise is pretty nice too. Ebb & Flow and The Parable both have some great payoff to their builds, really the only flaw with the latter is how abruptly it cuts out.
And before I say anything else I need to discredit the notion that I'm against the metal elements of this album entirely, because there are moments here that work quite well. I like the intro groove of Language II: Conspire that has stunted grooves, lots of space between different phrases. The last minute and a half of Integration has a strong chaotic mood to it, this song really should've focused less on atmosphere or have been on a different album entirely since they do this one part well. Thrive throughout has a faster pace than the rest of the album, some minor technical showboating and a lot of chuggy or strummy guitar lines, but it all merges well together and keeps the song compelling throughout, though no real moments besides the middle bass groove stand out.
So yeah. This album has a fair bit of negatives, but also a nice amount of positives to it as well, it's just a shame it's rather inconsistent and lacking cohesion. I'm kind of curious to see what direction the band will go in next, and I'm hoping it's to cut the metal down further and make a prog-infused atmospheric metal album with little to no harsher moments, but who knows, they may go in a completely different direction entirely. From what I can gather this is a lot unlike their albums before it, which leads me to be uninterested in their previous work, but also leaves me wary of their future. I'm not sure if they have a great album in them, if they don't have an interest in refining their musical ideas further than this. This is all dodging the point that I wish I could enjoy this album more than I do, but really don't see myself falling in love with it anytime soon, either.
Favorite Tracks: Thrive, Language I: Intuition, Ebb & Flow
Least Favorite Tracks: Integration, Arise
6.25/10
DTF Addendum: I really tried to like this more, I would absolutely love to love this album, but... meh, it just doesn't work for me the same way that [REDACTED] and [SPOILERS] do. It still ends up an okay enough album though, so?...
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I didn't have any expectations on Language since I didn't like the album they put out before it, but ended up loving it. IMO the mixture of progressive metal and ambient is perfect. One of the best progressive metal albums in the last decade.
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yeah, i'm already pretty aware this is the worst list on DTF already and we still have 50 to go :lol
#50 is a popular "AOTY" level album for a lot of DTFers too :corn
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I agree with this I think, atleast the expectations thing. This one seemed to be pretty much universally loved from what I've seen and read before I tried it. I dig Language I: Intuition but that's about it.
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This one seemed to be pretty much universally loved from what I've seen and read before I tried it. I dig Language I: Intuition but that's about it.
Pretty much this.
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I can't even fathom people liking stuff like The Astonishing or the new Haken over this album, but hey, opinions I guess.
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i don't prefer The Astonishing over this, fwiw
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This one seemed to be pretty much universally loved from what I've seen and read before I tried it. I dig Language I: Intuition but that's about it.
Pretty much this.
Yup.
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There's only so many times you can say "ebb and flow" on an album before it annoys me.
But seriously, Language is way better than The Astonishing. But not even close to Affinity.
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I've listened to about 15 albums released this year so far and only one of them is worse than The Astonishing :lol
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Oh yeah? Well I've listened to about 3 albums released this year so far and only one of them is The Astonishing.
And yeah I barely know any of these. I must be the only one who is just hearing about The Contortionist for the first time right now.
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I think I'm up to 6 2016 albums that I've actually purchased and listened to and The Astonishing is second least favorite for me.
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#50: Riverside - Love, Fear, and the Time Machine
#10 for 2015
(https://www.metalinjection.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Press_Cover_01.jpg)
I don't think the issues I have with this album have anything to do with them softening their sound. Riverside is a band that's always been able to do softer stuff just as good as heavier stuff. And while I don't think this is their best, I do like it more than their previous album, if only a little. But... bleh. I don't know, the songwriting here just isn't especially compelling.
I'm not going to say there's anything inherently wrong with simplicity, but... a lot of these songs are pretty simple. The primary focus here is on building atmosphere and the subtleties are given a lot more attention than the big picture, and while that does make pretty much every track sound gorgeous, it leaves a lot of them lacking real emotional impact or staying power. Lost and Found, the album opener and closer, respectively, are both pretty effective at setting their moods, and both have good vocal lines as well as strong atmosphere. Under the Pillow has a bit more bite to it, but other than that follows basically the same song arc as Lost. #Addicted has basically two distinct sections, the main groove of the song and the chorus, and while both are pretty strong musically they're not enough to fill 4 minutes on their own. Afloat is a brief nothing of a song that repeats its one main motif relentlessly with atmosphere building behind it, but never feels like it goes anywhere. Discard Your Fear is probably the most "accessible" track of the entire album, straightforward but effective, probably the best of the simpler tracks. And Time Travellers is... too long, and rather repetitive lyrically, but other than that solid enough. None of these tracks save for maybe Discard Your Fear have a lot of relisten value though, I don't find any of them that emotionally potent and the simple structure and instrumentation presents pretty much everything to you in a listen or two.
So, yes, the highlights of this album are the three proggier tracks, the ones that have more to offer than straightforward, catchy hooks and pretty atmosphere. Caterpillar and the Barbed Wire is built around a strict 7/8 groove, and a constant sense of progression and build all the way to the end of the track. Saturate Me is an absolute journey of a song, beginning with the most indulgent instrumental section of the entire album (and it's quite fantastic, feels like a softer version of something off Anno Domini High Definition, which is one of my favorite albums period), before cutting to a long and effective build, repeating a mantra as the song gets more and more intense. There's another pretty compelling instrumental break and a quiet reprise of the main mantra at the end. Towards the Blue Horizon as well takes a journey of its own, starting off fairly bright, with undertones of darkness creeping in until the song kicks in fully with probably the heaviest stretches of the entire album. I do dig the atmosphere though it feels a bit thin at times, the descending guitar riff that repeats is really cool too. The song returns to a melancholic mood near the end before kicking in the heavy atmosphere to finish. I think the pacing of this track is a little bit slow but not a huge problem.
The lyrics on this album are a mixed bag, on one hand Caterpillar and the Barbed Wire might have the best lyrics of the band's entire career, while #Addicted definitely has their worst. Most notably the line "Hashtag me and go" which is repeating several times, showing that they have no clue how twitter actually works, but in general this song ruins its cool groove with groan-worthy "old man yells at cloud" lyrics. Time Travellers expresses a nice sentiment in a kind of awkward and repetitive way, I get what they're trying to go at but the execution is botched. Beyond that there's not a lot notable in one way or another, though I don't tend to notice lyrics much if they don't swing one way or the other.
Pretty much every track has a strong chorus to it, too. Discard Your Fear probably has the best, with Caterpillar right behind. There's not much I about the choruses, really; Under the Pillow's feels like it deserves a bit more rough-edged vocals than it gets, but it's solid, and #Addicted's is only slightly marred by the lyrics, being pretty great otherwise. Really can't get past the lyrics to that track though, sheesh...
Beyond that, I don't feel like I have a lot to say. There's no bad tracks here, it's fairly consistent, with only a few standouts, and even the best songs here don't really hold up to any of my favorite Riverside tracks; they're great, but not fantastic. I never really mind listening to this album, but it's also not one I find myself wanting to put on very often; I didn't really revisit these songs at all after the first month or so I'd had the album. On the whole it's a generally pleasant and solidly written but not very ambitious album, and I can't really fault it, but I don't see myself revisiting this much in the future.
Favorite Tracks: Saturate Me, Caterpillar and the Barbed Wire, Towards the Blue Horizon
Least Favorite Tracks: #Addicted, Afloat
6.25/10
DTF Addendum: Oh man, I'm sure few people are going to agree here :lol But really, this is a fine album, just... I'm just waiting for something to even come close to ADHD in terms of quality, and this just doesn't scratch that itch for me. Mostly I just find myself waiting for the few tracks I really like, and even then they're not phenomenal. I dunno guys. Doesn't do it for me.
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:|
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my next roulette is going to be really, really fun
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Maybe my favorite Riverside album
I can't wait for you to get to the top10 so we can start poking holes in some truly bad albums ;)
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Parama, I think you will not find anything great in the first two The Contortionist albums. I put some of the older songs for listening them into the car but the 5-6 I've listened were almost all heavy. Holomovement and Causality are two of the songs I've heard live in Milan and they seemed more on the Language style if I remember well. On that live they have played only Language I and II from the new album but I really appreciated them, in particular the vocalist (the slow robotic movements plus his amazing voice have impressed me). There are instead four songs on Language Rediscovered EP you can find on youtube that are almost post rock. I think they are shifting away from the metalcore completely, I hope they maintain the same style of last album instead..
Integration, Thrive and Primordial Sound are my favourites. I think it's impossible to write an album of metalcore with post-rock influences that doesn't feel forced or unbalanced sometimes, but they have done a great work. It's one of the most interesting album I've listened to in the last decade for me too, even if this experiment hasn't completely worked.
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Maybe my favorite Riverside album
Saturate Me is absolutely magnificent. The entire album is really.
Parama's bad taste is starting to show here :neverusethis:
Also, it has my most favourite album cover ever.
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Sorry for the late comments but after the first djent albums of the list and others I did never heard I didn't check the thread for some days :laugh:
I never listened to Riverside and Leaving Your Body Map but I should do it sooner or later. For what regards The Artist In The Ambulance my least favourites are the most poppy tracks like Stare At The Sun and All That's Left (I have always been indifferent to the sound of Sum41, Yellowcard and similar punk bands that were popular 10 years ago. The more metal feel on some songs and the stellar songwriting let me become a fan of them).
The Abolition Of Man and the opener are by far my favourites on the album I still listen today frequently. They have done similar short songs with intense finals with scream vocals (the end of To Awake And Avenge The Dead from The Illusion Of Safety album is almost equal to the final of The Abolition Of Man, but I don't care because I love those parts).
Some songs are impossible to memorize, I agree with you :lol. Reading now the tracklist I forgot completely the existence of Hoods On Peregrine, and I remember that I couldn't memorize the closer and Blood Clots And Black Holes even after thirty listens of the album. I had to concentrate on BCABH and play it three times in a row to fix in mind it one day.
There are no bad songs and the album is really well written, to me it's a 9/10.
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#49: Schizoid Lloyd - The Last Note in God's Magnum Opus
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1272578885_10.jpg)
Whoo boy, this album. It's... hmm. On one hand, it's alright. Certainly could be worse. On the other hand... man, do I really want to like this more than I do. I heard the first track a fair number of times before actually getting the album, which led me to high expectations, since the first track is actually quite good. It's got a lot of weirdness to it and it's kind of a mess, but its creativity and coherence keeps it an enjoyable listen. It's "wacky prog crap" done well.
Unfortunately the rest of the album doesn't quite skew in that direction. I'm all for music not taking itself too seriously, and I don't think they go too far into "wacky" territory more than a small amount of times, but a lot of other times... it's comparatively normal, and often not as engaging. I have to worry if they're not capable of writing really good songs when they're not being weird, even though Suicide Penguin should prove otherwise. Ehh.
Suicide Penguin probably works so well because it's wacky, but has a solid core to it that the flourishes of weirdness add to instead of overshadowing. The circus organ and choir in the opening, the "Allelujah" bit in the middle, along with all its other various oddities, are mixed in with some intense and engaging riffing, though every instrument is given its own time to shine. It's got a good sense of flow that keeps it coherent.
Most of the other songs are much less diverse, however. Christmas Devil, Avalanche Riders, and Cave Painter all suffer heavily from a lack of dynamics; the first is just a solid wall of noise from beginning to end, the second keeps a medium loudness throughout, mostly sticking to holding a groove, and the third is a constant frantic energy that relies on its medium heaviness to keep it going. They're all relatively simple songs compared to the opener, and they're all solid enough, but not especially compelling.
Amphibian Seer also keeps to a central groove throughout, though it has more dynamics to it to keep it interesting, some heaviness, some quieter groove in the middle, and some in-between moments as well. I really dislike the lyrics of this song though, brings the whole thing down a notch for me. Chicken Wing Swans spends a few minutes stuck on one groove, cutting to a softer piano bit for a while, and a more intense final few minutes, but each of these sections on their own sticks pretty heavily to its chosen volume and the track is rather nondescript beyond the phases it goes through.
The low point of the album, for me, is the overly long Film Noir Hero, which is a piano and vocal track that just feels like it plods on and on for a minute and a half longer than it should. There's no consistent rhythm and there's a lot of showboating that doesn't really add to anything. The final track, Prodigal Son, provides a solid contrast, having more than just the acoustic guitar that drives the song to keep its atmosphere interesting, accompanied by probably the best and most emotive vocal performance of the album in contrast to the oversinging of Film Noir Hero.
That just leaves two songs to comment on, and they're certainly better tracks for their diversity and dynamics. Misanthrope Puppet is probably the strangest track of the album, its "chorus" being delivered as a circus announcer trying to rap, but it works surprisingly well, probably aided by the bright organ and guitar backing it. The song has a strong groove to keep it grounded even at its weirder moments, and the first verse has a nice sinister tone to the vocals. The crushing heaviness of the ending also punctuates the song nicely, even if it feels a bit disconnected from the rest.
And Citizen Herd... hmm. It's an unfortunate tragedy of the song. The first third has a nice atmosphere to it, some somber synths contrasting with frantic drumwork, and a constantly building sense of tension. It takes its time but it's clear that's building to something. The last third of the song builds up on a riff to the most intense climax of the entire album, it's absolutely visceral and chaotic. It gives way to a very soft and somber finale. Everything I've described thus far is pretty good. So what's the problem? They couldn't resist... there's just an absolute disaster of an instrumental section in the middle of the song, with some notably awful keyboard work and lacking any sort of compelling riffs or grooves. It's just two and a half solid minutes of showboating pointlessly and brings the song to a halt. Really, this could've been the highlight of the album if not for this middle section but I really can't forgive that much time wasting.
Some overarching problems with the album, aside from each song's individual problems, then. One, that circus organ gets oooold. It's not particularly fitting for a lot of the songs but it's the primary keyboard sound used, though thankfully not exclusively. I also don't find this album to have a very strong emotional core. There are moments of effectiveness, most notably the softer moments of Citizen Herd and the entirety of Prodigal Son, but beyond that I don't get much from this emotionally. And it often fails to please on a technical level, too; the prog noodling on this album is generally its weakest aspect, and there aren't a huge number of cool riffs, though there are at least a few.
Overall though, it's "solid". I can't say even the weakest tracks are "bad", just merely "okay". There's only really one track I think is excellent, and two others that are pretty good though not particularly fantastic either. And the rest are... good, decent, alright. But when so little of the album compels me one way or another, it's hard to enjoy the album as a whole, and considering the strength of its opener I was really expecting more out of this album than I got. It's not that weird, it's not that crazy, it's kind of a facade that betrays the real nature of the album, and maybe it's my fault for having expectations that couldn't be met, but I just don't feel much of a drive to revisit this one.
Favorite Tracks: Suicide Penguin, Misanthrope Puppet, Citizen Herd
Least Favorite Track: Film Noir Hero
6.25/10
DTF Addendum: The trend of the past 5 or so albums and probably for the next 10 or so after is me wishing I liked the album more than I actually do, which is really frustrating. You guys know I'm not being a downer just for the sake of being a downer right? Just stuff that never clicked for me but I kinda like a decent bit.
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I like that you actually checked this out. I love this band though.
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I've listened to about 15 albums released this year so far and only one of them is worse than The Astonishing :lol
I'm on 13 2016 albums right now, The Astonishing is like 9th so for me middle of the pack, I love most of the first act but I can barely sit through the second one, if at all. It becomes very tiring with songs like Hymn of a Thousand Voices, Our New World and Astonishing near the end.
That said, I rarely check out new releases if I haven't already liked atleast one song off them that I happened to stumble onto, or an artist I was already really into. There have only been two actual "disappointments" from my list so far and those are Havoc (by Circus Maximus) and Phenotype (by Textures).
Oh and good job parama on killing off the only Riverside album I've ever been able to enjoy beginning to end so far
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#48: Exivious - Liminal
(https://www.metalsucks.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Exivious-Liminal.jpg)
This is one of those albums where I have strange feelings towards it. On their own, each track is pretty good, and as well most every track has a unique sound with the same core sound. But as a whole, the album... well, I enjoy it a fair bit, but I never feel like I'm enjoying it as much as I should be. It's a very technically pleasing album that still has strong core songwriting, few of the songs outstay their welcome, and the album as a whole doesn't drag itself out pointlessly.
I think one major issue might be that they do have a tendency to drag out some bits too long, especially the cleaner atmospheric bits. Entrust has a section in the middle that could easily be cut 30 seconds, and same with Deeply Woven; both cool parts, but needlessly stretched out. The second half of Movement is the same, being just one long repetition of the same guitar pattern. There's some stretched out heavier bits, too; the last minute of One's Glow doesn't feel particularly necessary, and the last two minutes of Immanent start to drag after a while as well. I can kind of forgive this with how short the album is overall, but it makes it feel like they were stretching songs to make them meet some arbitrary runtime more than continuing playing because it felt right to do so.
It's also worth noting that pretty much every song has a similar structure to it. There will be one main theme, there's going to be a softer, atmospheric bit in middle somewhere (without fail, every track has one), a lot of the songs start with a quieter bit as well. And you can expect a tasteful solo or two in most every track. The album starts off pretty strongly and most of what loses me is the fact that after a certain point you've heard all their tricks and get a bit tired of them all.
And it's not that every song sounds exactly the same; aside from Open, I'd say every song has at least some identity of its own, but the same core sound runs through them all and is the most prominent element of most of the tracks here. Entrust feels the most jazzy of all the tracks, One's Glow has a ton of cool rhythmic work, Alphaform is noticeably more melodic than most of the tracks, Deeply Woven is especially intense and frantic, Triguna has a weird amount of dissonance to it, Movement is an inversion of the rest of the album's songs, being mostly quiet with a short heavier break in the middle, and Immanent has a darker tone to it than the rest of the album. These are all pieces of flavor and some of them stand out more than others, especially Entrust and Deeply Woven, which feel like they have the most personality out of all the tracks here.
Possibly the biggest problem, though, is the lack of emotional depth to this album. This is a pretty constant problem I find in instrumental prog, but there basically is none. There's stuff that sounds nice enough, pretty atmospheres and pleasant leads, but it's never a moving album in any way. That's fine for an album to be if it's pandering to the crowd who is only in it for the technicality of the playing, which this album does well; tasteful and rarely overindulgent, more focused on making interesting songs than showing off. But for me personally, I do like emotional depth in my music, it's really quite important.
I think it sounds like I'm being really down on this album because it's "just not my thing" but I don't mean to be unfair. There's still a lot here I like, I still do get a fair bit of enjoyment out of this album, but not as much as I could be getting. The elements are all there to make a great album - I particularly like the prominent basslines, the drumwork throughout is pretty cool, there's a lot of tasteful soloing, and the sax at the end of Deeply Woven is icing on the cake - but I don't think the execution is quite there yet. At the same time, I'm not sure it could be; most of the problems I have with this album are personal gripes more than the songwriting outright feeling wrong. If you're in to technical instrumental metal, this is probably some of the best out there. Far better than Animals as Leaders, for sure.
Favorite Tracks: Deeply Woven, Entrust
Least Favorite Tracks: Triguna, Alphaform
6.5/10
DTF Addendum: Instrumental prog is always one of the hardest things to keep interesting, but this is still a pretty alright album, in all honesty. Everything left is a good distance away from "bad" now, at the very least.
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Wow, I didn't know they released second album. I guess I'm 3 years late.
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My attempt to guess your top 5:
1. East of the Wall - The Apologist
2. Thank you Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places (you got this last year, right?)
3. The Ocean - Pelagial
4. Ulver - Shadows of the Sun
5. Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
But maybe Shiny Eyed Babies or EGO will make the top 5 :corn
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Ulver is a 2016 purchase :lol
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Ok so... replace it with Shiny Eyed Babies then :P
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will do, cap'n :corn
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when will i know if i won or not
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when the top 5 is revealed. i'm not spoiling it in advance :lol
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#47: Coheed and Cambria - The Color Before the Sun
#9 for 2015
(https://media.advance.net/entertainment_news_national_desk/photo/coheed-and-cambria-the-color-before-the-sunjpg-4f6416d79a1e410a.jpg)
Ergh. This is one of those cases that frustrates me, because this album is... "fine". Basically every track is "fine". None of them are bad, or even mediocre. This is actually the first time since... heck, In Keeping Secrets that I can say that about a Coheed album.
At the same time, the highs here just come nowhere close to any other of their albums, even Year of the Black Rainbow. The album is just operating on a steady 7/10 the whole way through. The songs here aren't as adventurous or ambitious as I've come to expect from Coheed, they're all very safe. Well-written, sure, but they're ultimately not groundbreaking.
The strength of pretty much every song on the album is its chorus. There are a lot of good, strong choruses on this album. Here to Mars has the best, easily, but Island, Colors, Atlas, and You Got Spirit, Kid all deserve mention too. Eraser probably has the weakest chorus of the album, all things considered, aside from The Audience which doesn't "really" have one. I can't complain about the hooks here though, they're generally pretty solid and earwormy.
Each song also tends to have one guitar line as its "main theme", but it varies between being overused and being used just enough. I think Island and Young Love especially rely too much on their guitar lines, while Ghost and You Got Spirit, Kid hit the right level of use, probably also because they have better guitar lines to begin with.
Really though, the strengths of this album are found mostly in the quieter tracks. Ghost, for one, is probably the best acoustic ballad Coheed has ever done. I don't think Claudio's ever sung so low before, and the minimal accompaniment works well to provide a nice backing without overshadowing his performance. Colors was probably the biggest grower on the album, one of the more emotive vocal perfomances, and the softer verses contrast well with the swell of the chorus. As well, the shift between 4/4 and 3/4 is really well-executed.
The biggest standout though definitely has to be Peace to the Mountain, starting off with some really gorgeous guitar lines and having a constant sense of progression and build, slowly but surely. The harmonized vocals singing the title again and again while layers of horns and strings come in and the song swells further and further... it's just beautiful stuff.
The other songs are mostly solid, but not as impressive all the way through; a lot of them feel stretched too thin for material. This is even true of Here to Mars, which I like a fair bit; it's got a great chorus and the rest is fine too but it feels like there's too little here to support a 4 minute song. This holds true for tracks like Eraser, Young Love, and You Got Spirit, Kid, and especially Atlas, all of which have too little meat on their bones for their runtime and rely too heavily on one or two elements. I do like Atlas' lyrics, probably my favorite on the album, but beyond them the song doesn't stand out compared to others on the album, or others in Coheed's library.
A few extra comments; there's this short 15-second bit at the end of Island that segues into Eraser and it's one of the coolest moments on the album. I'm not sure why they didn't develop that into a full song, that would've been a really cool song. And I think The Audience deserves special mention for how out-of-place it seems on this album, not necessarily in a bad way though. It's way heavier than the rest of the album, bordering on metal, and it doesn't really have a verse/chorus song structure like the rest of the album either. I do like the track for its uniqueness, if nothing else.
Honestly, overall I can't say I regret getting this album. It's different as far as Coheed albums go, being far more personal, and I'm glad for Claudio that he was able to get this out of his system and release a solid pop-rock album at the same time. On the other hand, even the songs I like don't match up to the greats of previous albums, and a lot of these tracks can get lost in the shuffle fairly easily. For how catchy and accessible the album is, it doesn't really stick with you that well, and it's far from an essential release.
Favorite Tracks: Peace to the Mountain, Colors, Ghost, Here to Mars
Least Favorite Tracks: Young Love, Eraser
6.5/10
Man, over half of the 2015 albums are already gone, huh. I was excited for a lot of 2015 albums and then a lot of them turned out very average, I guess :P Anyways this album is fine and I ended up moving it up a few spots right before I locked the list in place because really the album is probably the most "solid" album on the list up to this point.
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#46: Karnivool - Sound Awake
(https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/lyricwiki/images/f/f6/Karnivool_-_Sound_Awake.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130724064133)
I got this one long enough ago and haven't listened to it in a fairly long while and it makes it seem like something I've known for far longer than I actually have, which may speak to its staying power but may also speak to it just not being something that's ever really clicked for me. At a base level all the songs here are good, there's nothing I dislike, but not many of the songs stand out that much, either. And it's not like the songs blend together, either, they all do have a pretty distinct sound to them, even with a general core sound running through the album.
It's just... the perfect example of a "solid" album. Doesn't do anything wrong, is competent in its songwriting, knows what it wants to do and does it well. But at the same time it's not very ambitious, it's probably a bit too long, and at the end of the day there are only a few songs that stick with me. Set Fire to the Hive and Change are the clear standouts, with All I Know, Deadman, and Illumine being a little bit behind but still pretty good. The only track that feels wholly unnecessary is The Caudal Lure, which is still "fine" if not a bit flavorless. There. That's my entire opinion on this album.
Nah, that's a bit of a cop-out... like I said, most songs do have some defining features to make them stand out. Simple Boy and Goliath are particularly bass-driven and both have edges of intensity to them, pretty rockin' tracks. Simple Boy as well as the ending bit of Deadman have some xylophone bits to them which are pretty nice as well. New Day, All I Know, and Illumine are particularly straightforward songs that are pretty catchy, though the first might be a touch long. All I Know and Illumine have probably my favorite choruses on the album overall behind Set Fire to the Hive. Umbra has a pretty strong chorus too and a nice groove in the back half of the track. The Medicine Wears off is brief but has a nice soft to heavy arc through it.
The most interesting tracks to talk about are the especially compelling Set Fire to the Hive and the last two tracks. Set Fire to the Hive is more intense than the rest of the album and works so well for it. The frantic guitar and drums in the intro, the desperate sound of the vocals in the first verse, the "bumblebee" bridge with some fun rhythm play, the melodic prechorus and absolutely crushing chorus... pretty much all my favorite moments of the entire album are on this one track, it's a clear standout. It's pretty chaotic but juuust accessible enough.
Deadman is the first of the longer tracks and mostly relies on one guitar line, though there's still plenty here; a pretty nice groove, a strong chorus, and the bit at around the 7 minute mark is probably the most emotionally evocative moment of the entire album. It's pretty consistent with the rest of the album and does drag a bit in the middle but I still enjoy it. Change on the other hand is instantly different from the rest from the start, some tribal drumming contrasting with crushing guitar chords and bright guitar leads. There's a nice contrast between quiet, cleaner moments and heavier, more intense moments, and the hook of "halo hollow" or whatever is strangely catchy. The drum groove that closes out the track and album is pretty interesting too. It may also be a bit too long for its own good but it never really feels like it drags.
Beyond that though, there really isn't a lot to talk about here. If it were about 10 minutes shorter I'd probably rate this higher, but still not too high; it's at best a solid album that I can certainly appreciate but one that doesn't stand out too much from the crowd and doesn't have much unique to offer, but all the right pieces are in all the right places to make a competent prog rock/metal album. This'll probably do more for others than it does for me, too, I guess I'm just tired of this schtick by now.
Also yes they sound a fair bit like Tool but there's enough to keep them distinct in my mind. Lateralus is much more interesting than this album, for one. There, I said the thing.
Favorite Tracks: Set Fire to the Hive, Change, All I Know
Least Favorite Track: The Caudal Lure
6.75/10
DTF Addendum: I dunno what it is about this album, but I never really find it more than "fine". Can't really say there's any bad songs. Can't say I remember a lot of the songs either. I have no clue what The Caudal Lure sounds like honestly but I guess I liked it the least when I did this review, for one reason or another.
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I know it's not on the actual album, but along with the Set Fire to the Hive single they released a version of Roquefort with additional horns done by The Cat Empire, one they originally intended to do on the first album, and it's bloody awesome.
What's up with Deadman not being on the favorites list?
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I like Karnivool quite casually (even though they are quite the Tool clone) but could never get into Coheed and Cambria. Do not get the love for them at all, and their most recent album was a disappointment even among their fans it seems.
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I think you are pretty spot on with your review of The Color Before the Sun. It is solid but I was hoping for so much more. I absolutely love Coheed and Cambria, they are in my top 3 bands of all time, but they are probably the only band in my top 5 that i still listen to regularly. Their back catalogue is just awe inspiring, they haven't released a bad album in my opinion. I just don't get bored of their music.
That being said this album was the quickest of theirs to grow on me, which of course led to me start to lose interest in it quicker. Which is a shame. I agree about the choruses being the high points in most of the songs. I do like all of the songs on the album, there aren't any I skip, but I don't love The Audience or Peace to the Mountain quite as much as you. Not sure if you heard the bonus demos disk but the two extra tracks on there (Fangs of the Fox and Bridge and Tunnel) but they are also worth a listen.
This album was kind of what everyone expected, a solid non-concept album with a more pop rock approach, that didn't have the depth and complexities of their other albums. I know Claudio needed to get an album like this out but I hope he goes back to writing like he used to and that is the natural progression of what he wants to do. I mean that I want him to do what comes naturally and not force anything!!
I know they can come back stronger with their next release and don't doubt it for a second.
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I don't find The Color Before The Sun fine at all. In fact, the only positive thing I have to say about it is that the cover is pretty damn nice. :lol I've listened to the full album once and I don't plan on returning to it anytime soon unfortunately.
I totally respect Coheed for putting this out after all the more progressive albums they've put out, but it's exactly the kind of pop-rock that's not for me. There were signs of this kind of writing in the latter half of the Descension album too.
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I like The Color Before the Sun a fair bit, probably more than you do, Parama. No, it's not among their best albums, and it's disappointing if you're looking for prog, but I think it's a perfectly enjoyable rock album. Like a nice 7.5/10. I also like it better than Year of the Black Rainbow, though I have not listened to that one nearly as much as Color Before the Sun.
I do agree with your choice of favorites, except maybe for Ghost. But Peace to the Mountain, Colors and Here to Mars are all real standouts.
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#45: Intronaut - Valley of Smoke
(https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/lyricwiki/images/6/61/Intronaut_-_Valley_of_Smoke.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150925154031)
Intronaut is a band who in theory I absolutely love, but in practice I seem to find most of their albums have about half interesting tracks and half solid but forgettable tracks, and that feeling is stronger here than it is on any of the other albums I got from them in the past year. That's not to say this is a bad album, far from it really, but the songwriting here seems... hmm, I don't exactly know how to put it other than "off".
I think the main thing is that, while this album does have its own distinctive sound in the Intronaut category, it's in part due to the fact that a loooot of the tracks sound pretty similar. A lot of similar jagged riffs, a lot of high-energy frantic drumming, and especially a lot of delay-soaked atmosphere. And it's not like any of these elements are bad, just that the result is that any moment that doesn't fit into one of these categories tends to stand out more than the rest of the album.
Elegy has a really proggy riff that gradually spaces out the further the song goes on, starting pretty frantic, then gaining a half-time feel, and devolving further from there. It creates a nice sludgy effect without actually dropping the song's tempo. The thumping bassline in the quieter moments of the song is also pretty noticeable too. Core Relations starts out with a gentle palm-muted guitar line that provides some unique texture, and the weird slide guitar bits with an out-of-place empty atmosphere behind them stick out in a good way as well. And Valley of Smoke is a pretty consistently unique track, mostly for its dual-bass interplay throughout; the inclusion of Justin Chancellor from Tool creates a really interesting instrumental because of the two players' interplay.
Beyond that, a lot of the album sounds the same, though I'd be hard-pressed to say any of the tracks are particularly weak. It's more that they're just cut from the same cloth, and it's a pretty high-quality cloth, but not a cloth you'd want to use for 75% of your quilt. I really can't point to any other atmospheric moments that are particularly notable, but they're all pleasant and kind of dreamy. The often jagged riffs on the album tend to be pretty cool, as are the slower, sludgier ones, but there's not a lot that stand out from the others in either a good or bad way. Same goes for the basslines, which are consistently quite good, as is the drumming, always fitting the mood, whether that be frantic or more laid-back. I'd really say that the core of Intronaut is the bass and drums, which pretty consistently steal the show on every one of their albums.
I'd say the weak link here is the vocals, which is also pretty consistent with other Intronaut work; they're passable and fit with the music, but the harshes are a bit dry and the cleans aren't that soulful. Intronaut in general isn't a band I find to be that emotionally powerful, that may be the biggest problem I have with them, but they're good when it comes to building a nice atmosphere as well as building really technically engaging music; lots of polyrhythms driving the more progressive elements of the tracks.
If I could point to one singular weak moment of the track, I'd say it would be the very end of the last track, Past Tense, a solid bass groove which, while fine on its own, just doesn't provide for a very satisfying finale. And yeah, it's not that it's even "bad", just unsatisfying.
It's honestly impossible for me to say there's any bad or unpleasant music on this disc. At the same time, it all kind of blends together, and I enjoy the album while it's on but never have a strong drive to return to it like I have with other Intronaut albums. I've listened to it just as much as the others that I have, and it's always stood out as the weakest to me, but still far from weak. I guess that more than anything it's just not particularly adventurous. Still, if you like their other albums there's no harm in checking out this one as well since you'll still likely enjoy it.
Favorite Tracks: Core Relations, Valley of Smoke, Elegy
Least Favorite Track: Past Tense... I guess.
6.75/10
DTF Addendum: Behind David Maxim Micic, Intronaut is the band with the second-most albums on this list (4) but this is pretty easily their weakest to me. Three cool tracks and the rest being solid but kind of indistinguishable.
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Probably their best album. Their last 3 have gone in a declining order quality-wise and the last one was unfortunately somewhat of a jumbled mess.
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I disagree with every part of your post :tup
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(https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/forumavatars/avatar_1436_1459143861.png)
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I think my problem with the band in general is that they are enjoyable when you are listening to them, but not that memorable afterwards. I've sunk 5-10 listens into each of the albums and from the top of my head I couldn't really start humming any of the riffs or songs or anything. But the first album definitely has the most memorable parts/songs.
The lighter production really helped giving Valley of Smoke a great sound. I think giving Devy the reins on their most recent album was a colossal mistake. The quality in the songs themselves was on par with earlier albums, but the "wall of sound" production made it more annoying to sit through.
Great band but nothing amazing.
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#44: Muse - Origin of Symmetry
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5164XM4R30L.jpg)
After being disappointed by their latest effort, I remembered that I'd never actually checked out Muse's first two albums, and since Origin of Symmetry tended to get heaped with praise, and along with the fact that it's quite cheap to get these days, I figured I might as well check it out, couldn't possibly be worse than their recent albums.
And, no, it definitely isn't, it's probably their second best behind Absolution in all honesty. The first half of the album, especially, up through Citizen Erased is really quite good. The back half of the album really lets the front half down though, the album basically runs out of momentum at that point, the high energy of songs like New Born, Bliss, Hyper Music, and Plug In Baby or the heavily-textured journeys of Space Dementia and Citizen Erased give way to underwritten tracks like Micro Cuts, Screenager, or Megalomania, and the cover of Feeling Good by I don't even care is just completely out of place here, though oddly prophetic of their work on The Resistance or The 2nd Law; the better parts of those albums, at least.
And the songs that are good, there isn't a lot to say about. They're good in a straightforward way. New Born, Bliss, Hyper Music, Plug In Baby, they all have cool basslines to them. Bliss, Hyper Music, Plug In baby, Citizen Erased, great riffs. Bliss, Plug In Baby, Citizen Erased, heck, even Darkshines, great choruses. Space Dementia, Citizen Erased, strong atmospheric moments.
Especially here, Bellamy is a great singer. And an even better keyboard player, as tracks like Bliss and Space Dementia show off quite well. The sound of this album actually holds up really well despite being nearly 15 years old, a lot of it still sounds rather modern. The few gripes would be the awful phaser effect at the end of Citizen Erased and the bass tone on Darkshines. Neither of these are really huge problems though.
The songs that don't work as well, it's not really for any specific reason. Micro Cuts just isn't very compelling, but it's "fine". Screenager is kind of interesting but lacks dynamics and the song name is kind of awful. Feeling Good is a cover, something I'm never a fan of to begin with, and feels really out of place on the album, even if it's fine on its own. Megalomania feels like a track that treads water until the swell of its chorus, and doesn't have much to offer in general.
I just don't have much to say about this album. It's really something to be taken at face value; a lot of good songs, a few more not-so-good songs, nothing outright bad, and pretty solid as a whole, if not especially memorable. I don't think it deserves the praise it deserves but I can't say it's a bad album in any regards either.
Favorite Tracks: Citizen Erased, Space Dementia, Plug In Baby, Bliss
Least Favorite Tracks: Megalomania, Feeling Good
7/10
DTF Addendum: This isn't low because it's bad or anything since the first half is really quite great, just that we're at the point where everything is pretty good overall really, which I think is pretty great. But yeah, shame about the back half of this album.
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I appreciate that you are honest about your ratings and that average is six so don't give everything super high marksto everything, even when I don't agree with you.
But ESPECIALLY when I do agree with you (The Gentle Storm)
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Muse? more like Mehse
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Origin of Symmetry is good, but I still prefer Resistance and Absolution to it. Just has too many songs I find more meh than good.
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#43: Lesoir - Luctor et Emergo
(https://static.mijnwebwinkel.nl/store/lesoir/full34370482.jpg?t=1451386867)
Weird thing about this one. When I initially listened to it, I enjoyed it quite a bit. There's a mix of heaviness and atmosphere throughout and both are done decently well, probably the atmosphere moreso than the heaviness. But the more I listened to it, the less I liked it. I think the main problem is that a lot of the tracks are kind of samey, even if everything is fairly solid on its own.
Of the 12 tracks on the album over half could be grouped into a similar category; Battle, Going Home, Hold on to Fascination, Single-Eyed, In Reverse, My Perfect Self, Deliberate, and Flawless Chemistry all have a lot of the same, done in slightly different ways but not especially so. And it's fine for a band to stick to a core sound if they can do it well, but when so much of your album is the same mix of atmosphere, heavy choruses, soaring female vocals, and tight bass grooves, a lot of the songs can really feel like they lose their identity.
And let me state, for the record, that I don't think there are any bad songs here, and the elements of each track tend to work pretty well. I pretty universally like the bass on this album, the tone is nice and thick, it's mixed loud enough to be audible the majority of the time without ever overpowering the rest of the mix either, and the grooves the bass plays are always good.
The dynamics of this album are generally pretty strong, too. There's a lot of nice quieter moments, a lot of explosive choruses, and whenever a song wants to do a build it does it well. Some of the nicest quiet moments are the intro to Going Home and the entirety of Room For One More, some of the most somber moments of the entire album, as well asthe first half of (A Lady Named) Bright, which has a really uneasy and tense vibe to it, with an oddly bright chorus for contrast. It's a notable track for its unique tone alone.
The heavy riffs in general tend to be pretty solid if not particularly unique, and a number of them back strong choruses; Going Home has probably my favorite chorus, though the last chorus of Battle with the backing vocals comes close, and the vocals are notably strong on the chorus of Single-Eyed, but really, few are weak here; Hold on to Fascination is probably my least favorite track on the whole album because of its lack of dynamics throughout, making the verse and chorus pretty indistinguishable from each other. Even aside from the choruses there are still a number of killer riffs; there's two breaks in In Reverse that have a ton of groove to them, and the heavy riffs that kick (A Lady Named) Bright and My Perfect Self into gear are both pretty cool. Deliberate ends with a notably heavy and crushing riff that I also dig quite a bit.
But if you want to look at the moments where this album really shines, it's in the tracks centered around their builds. Press Play From Start, in particular, is just one long buildup throughout, and the atmosphere of this track is fantastic. It starts out fairly dark and soft, building until a brighter break, only for darker tones to creep in, and just when it feels like it's about to explode, the song cuts back a little only to start a more propulsive build, leading to probably the best climax of the album as the mantra of "Crawling back into the womb..." repeats over and over on top of itself. It's... pretty intense. The other standout track on this album is the title track, Luctor Et Emergo, which is... very strange, in the context of this album. It starts out with a delay-heavy guitar line and a thick bassline, with a flute improvising on top, and eventually a sample starts playing. The track doesn't really evolve much beyond gaining intensity, content to stick with its same elements throughout. But the swell of the synths and the increasing pressure of the drums creeps up slowly, giving the song a really intense atmosphere by the end. It's... really hard to describe, but I absolute adore this track and it's practically a must-listen. Flawless Chemistry is the album closer and puts a lot of focus on building up, its chorus in particular, and it does its job pretty well, though I don't find it as strong as the previous two tracks.
If I had to really criticize one weak spot, it'd be the vocals. I don't think the lead vocalist has much personality and while she's somewhat impressive technically, there's not a lot of emotional depth to her vocals either, they sound kind of dry. I think they suit the music pretty well, but definitely feel they could be improved to make for a more compelling experience.
I actually had a lot more praise and a lot less criticism for this album that I was expecting, really, maybe putting some time between it and coming back later allowed me to appreciate each song for what it was, but I still feel that a lot of the tracks aren't especially relistenable, you'll get a decent number of spins out of this but I did grow bored of it fairly quickly, though the best two songs at least stuck in my mind after I'd set this aside, they're pretty great tracks. With not a lot of standouts, though, and a bit monotonous of a general sound, I can't really call this a great album, but it's definitely pretty good, check it out if you're interested in vaguely proggy female-fronted alternative metal.
Favorite Tracks: Luctor Et Emergo, Press Play From Start, Going Home, (A Lady Named) Bright
Least Favorite Tracks: Hold On To Fascination, In Reverse
7/10
DTF Addendum: I probably overrated Battle a bit in my roulette, even using the old scoring standard, since the rest of that round was... admittedly pretty weak. Not that it's a bad song are anything, but just a pretty good one, nothing great. I'd like this album more if it felt a little less monotonous, I guess.
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It's a moth.
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thank you, elite
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Only heard Battle and I didn't really like it, so I guess I have horrible taste.
That's a good looking moth though
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#42: Serdce - Timelessness
(https://technicaldeathmetal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/WKzxPd5bj2w.jpg)
It's weird to say it but this was probably one of the most "normal" prog metal albums I got in 2015. I mean, yeah, "normal" for prog metal is pretty weird by "normal" standards, but if you've listened to any modern prog metal you probably already have an idea of what this sounds like. Is that a bad thing? No, not really. I think they still put their own unique spin on it, even if there's a good bit of Dream Theater and Cynic worship going on here.
There's a few weak spots to point out right off the bat; First, the vocals. They're not bad, but neither the cleans or harsh vocals are particularly impressive, they're mostly just "there". Second, the bass tone. Considering how high the bass presence is on this album, it's a shame it's accompanied by that tone; it feels just too watery and rubbery, it lacks any real power. Third, you can easily notice the song structures on this album are often quite similar. Quiet intro, some vocal bits, a long instrumental section in the middle, a reprise of the intro somewhere near the end. It gets a bit predictable, but the songs don't end up all sounding the same, just using a similar structure, so it's not a huge issue.
The album does have some flavor of its own; there's a lot of what I -think- is xylophone and saxophone throughout; the solo during the first half of Into Shambhala, the intro of Samadhi, the heavy moments of Loss of Feelings, a bit in the middle of The Sixth Sense, the opening solo of Newborn, and a lot of moments on Magic Rain, probably some smaller moments I missed too. There's also the music box intro of Omens, and a pretty strong strings presence throughout, though I'm fairly certain they're synthstrings, but they sound fine enough.
It's not an overwhelmingly heavy album, either, despite technically being death metal; I'd say the ratio of clean singing to growls is 2:1, and the balance between softer music and metal is probably 50/50. I'm really pretty okay with this, though, it means the music is nicely dynamic, and they never rest on any one mood too long so as to get tedious. The softest full track on the album, Loss of Feelings, still has some energy in the middle and even a moment of heaviness, it's not just purely a laidback ballad track. On the flipside, even the heaviest tracks, The Sixth Sense and Quasar, have their quieter moments as well.
I noted earlier that the vocals aren't great here, but that's just a minor complain in the end, as well, since the instrumental presence of this album is pretty clearly the focus. A lot of these songs have long instrumental breaks - Last Faith has three different ones, and notable all distinct; first a proggy technical section, a laid-back guitar solo, and a more technical, shreddy guitar solo. That's simplifying the three sections a lot, to be fair, but they all are pretty different.
One thing the proggier sections of this album do well is remain cohesive; it's not just a mishmash of unrelated ideas with no transition between them, nor is it sticking to doing the same "proggy" thing for a while before switching to something else; there's a flow to the sections, where they'll explore one theme for a while but add enough variation to it where it doesn't get stale, and gradually shift in the direction of another idea. Sure, there are brief musical tangents, but those tend to be interspersed in the middle of larger musical ideas as brief one-off interruptions. I won't say every transition is perfect as there are a few that don't work out so well; Omens, with how long its instrumental break is, has one or two off the top of my head, but it makes up for it by having all of its ideas work out well enough that the rough transitions don't bother me so much.
I will say for certain that I feel this album is a bit on the long and drawn-out side of things. Quasar in particular feels especially redundant, but there's a lot of small places this album could've been trimmed down to make it a more engaging experience; the band does have a pretty strict sound even with each track's individual mood, and some of the moments in the later tracks can tend to blur together.
There's a few nitpicks I have, as well; the abrupt end of Into Shambhala kills the building mood a bit too quickly in my opinion, some of the synth tones aren't great (especially the beginning of Unique Path and Quasar), and the fade-out ending to the album isn't the most inspired, but it's not an awful ending either.
On the flipside, there's a lot of musical moments I feel the need to highlight, mostly because I wrote a ton of them down and haven't had a chance to point them out. Samadhi has this salsa-esque bit in its instrumental, rotating out with a cool riff under some noodly guitar, and its outro is a crushing heavy reprise of the intro xylophone line. Omes has a kind of messy chorus that works way better than it should, a brief little jazzy bass bit in the instrumental as well as a very ragtime and classical-feeling paino soon after. Last Faith has easily the best chorus on the album, and there's a chuggy riff with descending chromatic flourishes in the middle of the song that I really dig. The weirdly slidey solo of Loss of Feelings is interesting if nothing else, but I think it works out alright, gives it a smooth feel. The opening riff of The Sixth Sense is very power-metally but pretty strong and pretty memorable. Unique Path is a weirdly cohesive song for the album and I like how it opts to build on the mood from its intro throughout most of the entire song. Magic Rain has a really strong feeling of finality to it, an intense and frantic mood in the heavier moments contrasted by the various softer moments.
I'll also leave a comment that applies to most of this album; I think the band is pretty capable of creating a strong mood with their music, moreso than they are writing really memorable or unique riffs, melodies, etc. This is especially true of the instrumental sections, where it barely feels like it matters what exactly is being played, just that the way it sounds registers as the proper mood easily and it's technically pleasing enough to remain interesting.
I don't feel any of this music particularly strongly, there's not many moments here I'm ever too interested in revisiting, but as a whole the album is pretty enjoyable to listen to, apart from its length. Is it groundbreaking? No. Is it unique? Nah. But am I glad I got it? Yeah, I'd say so. It's an oddly weightless album considering its technical nature, but I think that might be why I like it; though it also means I'll never have any strong dedication to it. I don't feel this is a particularly cohesive review since I'm still not sure I've completely processed this album, but take it as you will and at the very least check this out if you want some pretty solid prog metal; it's available for free download, so you might as well give it a spin if you're curious.
Favorite Tracks: Last Faith, Magic Rain, Samadhi
Least Favorite Track: Quasar
7/10
DTF Addendum: This is just the kind of album I enjoy on a base level, kind of mindless prog metal that's all pretty solid, nothing really mindblowing or even especially memorable, but, I like this.
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#41: Mew - +-
#8 for 2015
(https://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mew-plus-minus-artwork.jpg)
This is a fine album. It's a decently enjoyable listen. But... hmm. I don't know, it just feels a little... empty. With 6 years between this and their last album, you'd expect them to bring their A-game on every track, which I don't quite think we get here. There's a number of really good songs, and some others that are just decent-to-good, with one or two tracks that could be completely ignored.
I also wouldn't say it's that much of an album-album, it's more in line with Frengers where every song stands on its own more than the track order being that important. Aside from the first track and the last two, you could shuffle the rest of the album and get pretty much the same level of cohesiveness. I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing though, it works just fine on Frengers, more just an observation.
I think the biggest factor is that a lot of this music is rather straightforward, even more so than Frengers. Aside from the more experimental Clinging to a Bad Dream and Rows, every track here is pretty poppy, with a few songs bringing smaller twists to them but not a lot. And there's nothing wrong with straightforward music, as long as it's well written - which it tends to be here. There's a lot of good choruses on this album - Clinging to a Bad Dream and Water Slides probably have the best ones of the album - but at the same time, these two are probably songs most memorable only for their choruses, while not doing a whole lot for me outside of them.
There's also a few tracks with a high level of energy running through them - Witness and My Complications most notably. I think it works better for the former as the song is shorter, and there's more texture than in the latter, but both are fine enough songs, neither great nor anywhere close to bad.
The songs that bring the most unique flavor to them tend to be the standouts here, though. Satellites struck me immediately as a great track when it was released ahead of time, and I'd stand by that - a nice build in the intro and the "my own electricity" bit is great both times it appears. As well, the shift between the more relaxed triplet feel and the more energetic rest of the song keeps it interesting throughout its runtime.
Making Friends has a nice groove throughout, the guitar line on the verses has a funk vibe to it, but the layers of texture that are Mew's trademark makes it something unique on its own. Rows is notable for being the band's longest track to date, but beyond that it's also stunningly gorgeous, with a nice long build in the first half and a heavily atmospheric climax in the second half. What does that remind me of? Hmm... But, then the last few minutes shift gears entirely and bring the track to a more energetic close. It's a great and gorgeous ride from beginning to end.
Sometimes a track having more unique flavor can backfire though, which brings me back to Clinging to a Bad Dream. This song frustrates me, since there's moments of brilliance (primarily the chorus) but the track is so... confused. I don't like the intro at all, and the rhythm-screwiness of the track doesn't work very effectively, making it end up sounding like a mess overall.
That's also not to say that the songs that aren't especially unique can't be good, though. Take The Night Believer for example, which features a fantastic guest spot by Kimbra, and Bjerre's vocals are pretty on point throughout too, probably my favorite vocal performance of the album. This could've been a huge pop hit, honestly, shame that it wasn't. And Cross the River on Your Own, which is a straightforward but absolutely gorgeous closer, a very relaxing 3/4 triplet feel throughout and another great vocal perfomance, plus the piano work throughout is very lovely. There's no other words to describe it than beautiful and its synonyms, honestly.
Even as I lavish praise onto the album's better tracks, I'm still quite aware of its shortcomings - the better tracks here, while good, don't match up to the best of Frengers for me, and its not as consistent of an album as And the Glass Handed Kites is either. On top of that... it's really nothing new for the band, the most "experimental" tracks here aren't as out there as stuff on Glass, and there's much less of the progressive rock elements as there were on their previous releases, and more of the dream pop sound. While I'd still recommend it to fans of the band, it's not in the same league as their previous work and not the greatest of albums on its own, either. Decent to good, but pretty far from great.
Favorite Tracks: Rows, Cross the River on Your Own, Satellites, Making Friends, The Night Believer
Least Favorite Track: Clinging to a Bad Dream, Interview the Girls
7/10
DTF Addendum: This one's gonna read a little weird, because I wrote it to be about a 6 on my current scale, but then I kinda mulled it over and it rose a lot in my mind, and ended up where it is. So that's a story.
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Good album but yeah, maybe the weakest out of the last 4. And the Glass Handed Kites and No More Stories continue to be the best they have put out.
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If that Serdce album is one of your most normal prog metal albums I look forward to the rest of the list :lol seriously this album has some of the most non-sensical wank sections, they ruin every song with it. Well, every song except Magic Rain, automatically making it my favorite. I think 7/10 is pretty generous for this one
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#40: Burst - Lazarus Bird
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0483573692_10.jpg)
I've been putting this one off. I actually moved it up on my to-do list to put it off, and since the last review I did I've been dreading sitting down and doing this one after. Ooh boy. This album is hard to talk about. On a song-by-song basis, none of these tracks are especially good. The album as a whole is somehow better than any one song, though. The album is also damn consistent; it'd be hard to pick out any one track above the others, or weaker than the others. It's just rolling at a steady pace from beginning to end.
If I had to highlight one song for candidates of "best" and "worst" I'd give those to Cripple God and Nineteenhundred respectively. The former has a ton of great guitar riffs throughout and some of the prettiest moments on the album to contrast, plus a guitar theme at the end that feels like something straight out of a cowboy western. Nineteenhundred's only real weakness is its last three or so minutes, starting with an awkward guitar line, but mostly those wailing saxophones and a lack of any sort of movement. The rare moment where sax in metal actually works against a song, yep.
The structure of the album, too, is basically as good as it gets. 8 tracks, just shy of an hour. No tracks break 10 minutes, either. It's the perfect album length, the perfect track length. And each song feels like it's in its right place, the flow of the album is quite strong. On top of that, each song definitely has a unique feel to it, no track feels like the band on autopilot doing the same thing they've done before. There's a ton of creativity on display.
I guess my fault with this album, then, is... a lack of power. There is just very little power behind any of this music, little emotional presence in any manner. Sure, the heavy parts are kinda heavy, and the pretty parts are kinda pretty, but I don't connect with them in any real way. On the other hand, the variety of the album combined with how technically pleasing it is still keeps it an enjoyable listen, but the lack of power is probably what's responsible for its lack of staying power. There's a moment or two in every song I remember, but even those are fairly innocuous moments.
I think the biggest problem here are the vocals. The harsh vocals can go from serviceable at best to laughable at worst (most notably the 4/4 bit in the middle of We Are Dust which is almost cringeworthy). The cleans are generally fine though, maybe a bit lacking in any emotional presence but they sound nice enough. The vocals aren't generally a major factor on this album regardless, there's probably more music on the album with no vocals than there is with vocals.
The other general thing I don't like about this album is one of the particular guitar tones that gets used fairly regularly. It's drenched in wah pedal and rather thick sound, it almost feels like it's mocking the listener in a weird way. I dunno. It's not omnipresent on the album or anything and I kind of zone it out after a while, but it bugs me nonetheless.
I could highlight any number of moments on the album that stick out in a positive way, and comparatively few in a negative way; I've already touched on the worst offenders at this point and there's nothing else that comes close. As far as stronger moments go, per track:
I Hold Vertigo. The pretty post-rock interludes, the haunting, Ulver-esque bit in the middle, the full-band synchronization hits in the middle and at the end.
I Exterminate the I. Really cool intro rhythms and a 5/8 guitar riff weaved into a lot of the track. A bass groove with some psychedelic guitar lines on top. A weird break in the middle with clapping and Spanish-sounding guitar.
We Are Dust. The entirety of the first few minutes are quite pleasant, as is the first heavy bit. The triplet synchronization bits in the middle and at the end, and a strong guitar line at around 5:50.
Momentum. The long build and the payoff, really the track in its entirety; but it doesn't stand well on its own.
Cripple God. Already touched on this one. Just consistently good.
Nineteenhundred. Really everything but the last few minutes, the frantic proggy guitar lines, the groove of the middle of the song, all cool stuff.
(We Watched) The Silver Rain. The main themes. They're fantastic, especially when they sort of merge together near the middle and end. There's also some intense heavier bits in the middle and at the end.
City Cloaked. Simple but elegant. The prettier 5/4 theme, the excellent 4/4 main riff, and the relaxed 4 minutes of hypnotic cooldown at the end.
I can list out all of these moments, but I wouldn't say any of them hit me especially strongly, at the end of the day. Yes, they're all good moments, but I don't know if there's a truly "great" moment on this album, much less a large amount of them. Every song has a few particularly memorable moments, but I only remember them for a short while after listening to the album, then I move on to having something else stuck in my head.
I don't know. At the end of the day my thoughts on this album are still a jumbled mess. This one never really "clicked" for me despite the number of listens I gave it, and I can't make it "click" if it's just not going to quite hit the sweet spots I'm looking for. At the same time... hard for me to call it a bad album since regardless of my gripes with it I enjoy this album every time I listen to it, very few weak moments and a lot of quality music to be found here. There's only the one spot on the album that I find boring in any capacity, the rest keeps me engaged all the way through.
Maybe it's just me, maybe it's that this album was written for a different audience than me. Maybe I'll come back to this later and it'll really click, but I kind of doubt it. As it stands I'm going to leave it as-is: A good album, but definitely not a great one.
Favorite Tracks: Cripple God
Least Favorite Track: Nineteenhundred
7/10
DTF Addendum: The best album that I don't like as much as I should.
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#39: CHON - Grow
#7 for 2015
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81I0hU5kq8L._SL1425_.jpg)
This is the exception to the rule. Technical music that can emote, what a wild concept. Really, I get more from this as "mood music" than I do any sort of display of technicality; not that it's insufficient in either regard. It's also on the short side, practically an EP, but I think that for the kind of music that's on here, ~34 minutes is fine.
It's also kinda samey-sounding, though; aside from the two vocal tracks and the two shorter tracks, it's hard to remember which track is which. There's a good mix of noodly guitar lines, pretty guitar melodies, nice chord progressions, generally pretty technical drumming, and a fair number of solid basslines.
But it's a good sound, and it's good mood music. It's very peaceful and bright, the guitar tone is basically perfect for the sound they're going for, and the fact that the playing isn't inhumanely perfect makes it emote more on its own.
The two vocal tracks stand out by default for the not-especially-great but plenty emotive vocals, especially Can't Wait, which is just a great little song; really nice main melody, a nice variety for its runtime, and the vocals add some emotional depth. Echo is nice too, rather atmospheric and it has a pretty solid guitar line towards its middle and end.
I think my least favorite moments are the songs that veer a bit too hard towards technical playing; Splash is probably the most show-offy track of the bunch and feels a bit lifeless in comparison to the rest, and Knot is a bit messy, more like a collection of shorter ideas stitched together than a cohesive track, but at the end of the day they're still both nice songs. The only real disappointment is the closer, But, which mostly just feels a bit anticlimactic and empty, but again, far from a bad track.
There's really not a lot to say about this album, though, it's got a good core sound that I find rather enjoyable, it's the rare case of (mostly) instrumental technical music that stays engaging and feels alive. It's easy to listen to and brief enough to not get tiresome. Just really solid all-around.
Favorite Tracks: Can't Wait, Story, Perfect Pillow, Echo
Least Favorite Tracks: But, Splash
7.25/10
DTF Addendum: Considering how short this album is I'd definitely consider checking it out if it songs interesting, I think it's really pretty solid on the whole, maybe a bit samey but eehhhh.
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I sampled a few songs from it and felt pretty boring and technical, didn't find much emotion behind it. Tastes :corn
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yeah, and you liked EGO so :corn
also i never commented before but i tried listening to No More Stories like twice and couldn't get into it at alllllll
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yeah, and you liked EGO so :corn
I'm just a sucker for David's style, maybe that explains it :lol
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Yeah it's a great album. I like how short it is and out of everything I have, this is one of my favorite "relaxing" records, awesome how they can turn the technicality into such relaxing vibes. :corn
I sampled a few songs from it and felt pretty boring and technical, didn't find much emotion behind it. Tastes :corn
yeah, and you liked EGO so :corn
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#38: Negură Bunget - OM
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91onSQuPJ-L._SL1425_.jpg)
Above all else, I can definitely say this album is... interesting. Unique. Absolutely worth checking out. That being said... hmm. I enjoy this, but it's not quite there, not quite as good as it could've been. It's still a damn solid album, don't get me wrong, but I never got to feeling particularly strongly about it.
The album does do a lot quite well. For one, the atmosphere. It's pretty consistently great. There's something about the production on this album that's just washed-out enough so that it doesn't destroy the sound quality but still allows a lot of the instrumental elements to blend together and sound really full and huge. It's very rare for this album to sound empty, even in its quietest moments. From the three ambient tracks, to the driving folk interlude of Norilor, and all throughout the heavy and occasionally softer moments of the metal tracks, there's just a strong level of atmosphere on every track. Special mention goes to Ţesarul De Lumini, probably one of the best atmospheric black metal tracks I've heard.
There's also a ton of progressive touches to this album; lots of shifting tempos, lots of complex, constantly moving song structures, but thankfully no overindulgent instrumentation or pointless wacky instrumental breaks. It's very well-grounded. Cunoaşterea Tăcută is probably the highlight in this regard, going through lots of phases, a lot of thicker atmospheres, a number of changes between a 4/4 and 3/4 mood, a clean break that builds into a heavier break further on, as well as a folky break driven by xylophone and flute. Special mention goes out to the riff at around the 2 minute mark that's repeated at the very end, which I just really dig.
The rest of the metal tracks all have these elements running throughout them, but on a few of the tracks they end up sounding maybe a bit samey or get lost in the shuffle. Înarborat, Dedesuptul, and De Piatră all fit into the same mold, and each has a variety of heavier moments mixed with some softer ones, but with how heavy and intense a lot of the songs are they do end up a little "plain" in my mind.
One of the more striking elements of this album is the Romanian Folk scattered throughout; sometimes it's given front stage, like in the dark and intense movie-soundtrack-esque Norilor and the oddly playful Hora Soarelui, which eventually takes its folk elements and fuses them with the metal of the album to create a great last climax for the album. Other tracks feature moments of folk, like Cunoaşterea Tăcută and the beginning of Înarborat, and there's some folk infused into the ambient bits as well; Primul Om has some chanting in its earlier moments and a twinkling sound in its back half, and Al Doilea Om has some pounding drums as well as a bit of the horn in its atmosphere (not exactly sure what kind of horn though).
When it comes to things I dislike... hmm. There aren't a lot, honestly. I dislike the whispered/growled vocals of the opener, Ceasuri Rele, I think the atmosphere they were going for there would've been just find without them. And this is the tiniest of tiny gripes, but the very start of the clean-plucked break in Cunoaşterea Tăcută adds an extra half-beat that feels like an error more than anything else. Other than that... there's no real negative aspects, the worst the album does aside from that is maybe drag on a bit too long with a few tracks that don't particularly stand out but are solid enough on their own.
This album on the whole is quite strong though and while I can't fully get behind it, it's definitely a worthwhile listen and I'm glad to have gotten it. I think I may respect it more than I actually like it, but I still like it a lot; there's a dark, oppressive atmosphere throughout, generally interesting songwriting, and lots of disparate elements blended together rather seamlessly to make a wholly unique experience.
Favorite Tracks: Cunoaşterea Tăcută, Ţesarul de Lumini, Norilor, Hora Soarelui
Least Favorite Tracks: Ceasuri Rele, De Piatră
7.25/10
DTF Addendum: This is another of those really highly rater albums that doesn't quite do it for me, but I enjoy this a lot more than maudlin of the Well, definitely. For someone more into black metal than I this is probably the most amazing thing, and there's plenty of moments here that are great but yeah. This may be a few spots too low thinking about it now, but if so only a feeeew. List ain't perfect, whatever.
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Many of these picks are definitely 2prog4me
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#37: Destrage - Are You Kidding Me? No.
(https://www.metalblade.com/us/covers/Destrage-AreYouKiddingMeNo.jpg)
The first thing you're likely to hear about this album is "lol it's so wacky". Which. It's not, really. There's moments of wackiness but they're not that prevalent. More than anything, it's chaotic. Kind of obnoxiously so; there's only one track on the entire album that takes a more laid-back approach while the rest are pretty intense all the way through. It's kind of an exhausting listen, and occasionally a kind of samey one, a few of the tracks don't stand out on their own so well.
The wackiest moments of the album tend to be quite tasteful even if they're completely out of the blue, it's surprising how un-gimmicky they feel; they're not just using other styles, they're doing them quite well. There's the breakcore bit at the end of Destroy Create Transform Sublimate, which is completely random, sure, but because of the buildup to it works so well. I actually like the buildup more than the payoff, even, that dark atmosphere of the horns and strings, with a frantic drum solo cutting through and building tension until the electronic stuff comes in in full... it's a really neat moment. Purania has a break in the middle that sounds straight out of a Between the Buried and Me song, but they build off it well enough to justify it, and the transition in and out of that section is surprisingly smooth for how abrupt it is. G.O.D. has a twangy feel throughout and especially the moment at the start of the second verse which practically makes me want to get up and squaredance. Before, After and All Around has a break that feels like bluegrass of all things. And the final track is just a wonderful thrill ride of a song, punctuated by the heavy Spanish influence; there's a guitar line that pops up through the first half a few times, before kicking in to a full salsa groove, complete with horns, that then turns into almost a polka-like verse sans actual polka instrumentation. So yeah. The weirdness of this album is actually generally really well integrated into the whole mix.
So where does the problem lie? Well, for one: The vocals. Specifically, the harsh vocals. They are... not very good. I don't like either the higher screeches or the lower ones that sound like the vocalist is vomiting. My least favorite of these would have to be on My Green Neighbor, but they're really pretty consistently mediocre. They're not prevalent enough to bring the whole thing down that much, at least, but they do bother me.
The other thing is that some of these songs... don't stand out. Every song here is fairly competently written but a lot of them don't have great riffs or any real unique flavor to them. Hosts, Rifles & Coke is probably the biggest offender here, the most identity it has is having a triplet groove, sometimes. Before, After and All Around isn't far behind, aside from its chorus and the aforementioned bluegrass bit, there's not a lot here. I still think the songs are solid enough on their own but when you have an album this intense it's really best to not waste time with just "okay" stuff.
One thing that practically every song has is a really strong chorus. They're catchy, they're punchy, and usually there's a strong riff backing them. As far as chorus catchiness goes, Before, After and All Around takes the prize, with Purania and Waterpark Bachelorette not far behind, but it's hard to point to a bad chorus on this album. My Green Neighbor would have the weakest if not for that -amazing- hook riff playing behind it which was the primary thing I remembered about the song when I first heard it, this one being the track that introduced me to the band.
It's also pretty evident from just listening to the album, but these guys are really talented players. Except maybe the bassist, who may or may not exist, bass presence is kind of lacking here. But otherwise, yeah. There's a ton of impressive guitar work, from the crazy fast noodling of Destroy Create and G.O.D., to the tight guitar lines practically every track has, and even a few grooves like the break of Waterpark Bachelorette. Not to mention the random guitar flourishes throughout a lot of the tracks that only add to the chaotic mood. And the drums... dear lord, this guy is insane. I don't think he's especially talented outside of being to play a damn crazy fill or solo but I think that kind of playing fits this music well. The technicality of the playing is what gives this album its mood more than anything else.
The one thing about this mood is that it's pretty oppressive. Out of 10 tracks, 9 of them are loud and noisy with little reprieve. That just makes the one black sheep of the bunch, Where the Things Have No Colour, stand out even more, especially with its strategic placement right in the middle. Track order hardly matters on this album besides the first, middle, and last track, but each of those are nailed pretty well. And the middle track in particular, is... well, it's more laid back and heavily melodic, which makes it far different from the rest, and kind of allows me to overlook that for what it is it reeeally isn't that special. But it's still pretty solid, and I like it more by association with the rest of the album, it's a cool song.
Overall I do like this album, but it's not the kind of album you can put on for a frequent listen; it's just too intense for that, and maybe a bit too bloated. Yes, I'm calling a 50 minute album too bloated, but this album has enough music on it to easily fill 80 minutes, crammed into a much shorter period of time, that can make it quite the overwhelming listen. And since a few tracks feel vestigial, perhaps they should've been left behind. But I digress, for what's here this is a pretty solid listen and will definitely satisfy an urge for frantic, technical chaos should you be in the mood for it.
Favorite Tracks: Are You Kidding Me? No., Destroy Create Transform Sublimate, Where the Things Have No Colour
Least Favorite Tracks: Hosts, Rifles & Coke, Waterpark Bachelorette
7.25/10
DTF Addendum: Oh hey something people actually know about again. I don't really have more to add.
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Negura Bunget is nice. Destrage got boring at a certain point after having heard it too much.
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I love how the last song has a solo that literally plays in several styles, pretty rad stuff this album. Hyped for their new one later this year.
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The title-track is awesome indeed, including the trumpets.
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is the guitar solo in different styles? maybe bcuz I was already familiar with bumblefoot but it sounds pretty standard stuff for him, in a good way
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I'm loving this album, this is one of my favorite albums I've checked the last half year for sure. Caters my alternative metal needs aswell as prog
Your favorite songs are pretty good, all in my top 4. Though my #1, Purania, is missing :'(
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#36: Deafheaven - Sunbather
(https://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/album_review/deafheaven-sunbather-1376335512.jpg)
This is a pretty straightforward album to talk about; for an atmospheric album it's pretty rigidly structured, with a metal track followed by a lower-key interlude being the pattern of the entire album; and the album is more about a sound than it is song compositions, though it certainly has solid songwriting.
Its strength is that its chosen sound is just, really cool. Really warm and intense, enough to where it starts burning rather than just soothing, but never quite so hot that you can't take it. Yes, it's not standard black metal at all, but who really cares. This was actually the first album I got that was any kind of black metal, and I'd definitely call it a pretty solid one, though perhaps not anything that amazing.
There's just a rawness to the sound of the album that makes it work. Huge walls of guitar noise, pretty frantic drumming throughout, and harsh vocals buried just enough in the mix to blend right in. It's pretty bright at times, though a lot more melancholic at others, though it never really reaches "dark" territory. The production is just washed-out enough to create atmosphere, but not too lo-fi so as to get grating.
The album isn't just nonstop energy even during the metal songs, too, there's post-rock-ish moments in all four of the heavy tracks and generally some more laid-back though still pretty heavy metal as well. The songs all have a pretty solid flow to them, there's no real awkward transitions between segments and there's a direction to every track, even if they tend to take their time.
The three interlude tracks all have their own moods, too. Irresistible is just really pretty and serene, clean guitar and piano creating a gorgeous atmosphere. Please Remember is pretty unnerving in its first half, a pretty intense wall of noise by the middle, and a prettier, melancholic last movement. Windows is kind of dull though, just some uneasy synth and a lot of samples the whole way through, never really goes anywhere.
It's probably the most "pure" fusion of shoegaze and black metal, though, having the warmth of the former and the heaviness of the latter in much larger doses than most blackgaze bands tend to. And again, more about the sound than the actual substance here, which is fine for a primarily atmospheric album. It's really hard to say much more about the album; definitely not a flawless album, but a pretty solid one all-around, and one I enjoy listening to every time, even if I'm not crazy over it.
Favorite Tracks: Dream House, Vertigo, Irresistible
Least Favorite Tracks: Windows, Please Remember
7.25/10
DTF Addendum: I think I liked this less the more I explored other black metal and blackgaze releases, and I'm really not sure why this is considered to be the pinnacle of blackgaze by so many (hint: 3 blackgaze records above this one on my list, and more black metal beyond that as well). But I mean, it's still good, so.
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I found this album very same-y all the way through, with little variety for my taste, and a bit boring. But yeah, Dream House and Vertigo are the best tracks here, even though that's not saying much :corn
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I found this album very same-y all the way through, with little variety for my taste, and a bit boring. But yeah, Dream House and Vertigo are the best tracks here, even though that's not saying much :corn
you're not wrong, really, it's a pretty samey album but it nails its mood and i can enjoy it plenty
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#35: East of the Wall - Redaction Artifacts
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91c1i8aynKL._SL1500_.jpg)
This is a strange album to consider since I'm still not quite sure how exactly I feel about it. There's a lot of the same elements that made The Apologist work so well, and some new elements brought to the table to make it distinct and unique. East of the Wall don't make the same album twice, and that's definitely true here. It's just that this album never really seems to reach the peaks of the albums before it, though it doesn't really have any lows either, it's operating on a pretty consistent, solid level throughout, but not one that I ever find myself falling in love with.
One big problem I have with this album is the production, and especially, the mixing. For starters, the vocals are, without fail, mixed too low. Both the cleans and the harsh vocals get pretty well buried during the heavier moments of the album. It doesn't help that the new harsh vocalist isn't especially good; there are a lot less growls here than the previous two albums, to be fair, and I get the sense they were kind of aware of the lacking harsh vocals on this album, but the mixing of the clean vocals suffers alongside it, though the cleans still sound pretty good. A lot of the guitars get mixed poorly too; there's a lot of subtle noodly guitar work that gets just a bit too buried in the mix; while I wouldn't want all of it at the front, there's moments where the guitar should be driving some climactic lead but it feels instead like I'm listening to it from the other side of a wall. Even some of the heavier guitars feel a bit thin; the album doesn't pull off heaviness as well as the previous albums, for sure. There's not enough punch to the guitars to really work. Thankfully, the bass and drums both sound pretty good throughout, and the bass is mixed at just the right level, but on the whole it does feel like a bit of a botched production job.
The other problem I'd dissect here is that this album is just pretty lacking when it comes to catchy hooks, anthemic riffs, or addictive grooves. While the album has a fair number of moments that are solidly memorable, nothing really hits me as strongly as large chunks of The Apologist and a lot of the better moments of Ressentiment. There's very little in the stretch of Abriters Meet to Excessive Convulsive that does much for me at all, though it all sounds "fine". And while Noir Filter is a pretty solid closer, it feels like it could've been tightened up, some of the lesser moments cut out to let the stronger ones shine more.
There's a lot of neat experimentation here that I think works out pretty well though, a lot of small moments that are pretty notably different from the previous album. There's an almost poppy sound to the quieter moments of The Fractal Canopy, there's the somber and slightly folky acoustic The Methuselah Tree, A Negligible Senescence is the only time between any East of the Wall release I've heard that has any kind of thematic reprise going on and it pulls it off well, and Readaction Artifacts is a strange, spacey interlude leading up to the final track.
Even when not being as adventurous, there's still a distinctly different sound to this album. There definitely seems to be a stronger focused on higher-pitched melodies rather than sludgy heaviness; for one, there's more guitar solos than ever before, and most of them have a weird shreddy quality to them that makes them work pretty well as texture, though I particularly like the solo at the end of Noir Filter. There's also some fast-paced melodic guitar moments; Obfuscator Dye is heavily built around a manic guitar line, and Arbiters Meet has a few sections in its middle in 5/4. In contrast, the heavy, sludgy moments are definitely rarer; the start and end of I'm Always Fighting Drago are pretty nice and heavy, and there's a cool riff playing under the noodly guitar of Obfuscator Dye. The intro of Noir Filter is also wonderfully heavy, a very doomy feel to it. That's... really about it, as far as the most memorable heavy moments go.
I could comment on all the little cool drum moments throughout the album, as there are definitely a lot, but I'm not sure what good that would do; suffice to say that I definitely feel the bass and drums on this album haven't lost their edge, for sure. Just go listen to the wonderful bass melodies at 1:55 of I'm Always Fighting Drago, the jagged grooves of The Fractal Canopy as well as the bright bassline at 6:55, the unsettling bass during the softer moments of Third-Person Camera, the chuggy and jagged groove at 2:25 of A Negligible Senescence, or the really pleasant atmosphere at 5:20 of Noir Filter, and dare say it doesn't sound great. As far as the drums go, pretty much any heavy and intense moment on the album is going to have some excellent drumming accompanying it. There's a number of cool quieter moments, too; drums accompanying the bass at 1:55 of I'm Always Fighting Drago, another nice moment accompanying the drums at 2:15 of The Fractal Canopy, the awesome groove at the start of Third-Person Camera, some booming drums that contrast the mood nicely at 4:35 of Noir Filter, as well as a break at 6:05 for some driving, tom-heavy drumming. These are just a small number of all the great moments here, though, I definitely find my attention being drawn to the bass and drums as often if not more often than the guitar work here.
At the end of the day, this is definitely still a pretty solid album, but perhaps one that's missing the power or passion that previous albums had; it feels like the band sat down and wrote some of the most technical stuff in the band's history but forgot to write their emotions into it as strongly. The two longer tracks work better than the rest of the album because they feel a lot moodier and more engaging; whereas the rest sounds pretty pleasant and some degree of technically satisfying, but ultimately ends up blending together a bit too much and leaving me colder than I'd like.
But. It's still an East of the Wall album. Would I recommend it? Yeah, if you've heard their previous two albums and are still craving more. And I can definitely commend them for not just rewriting The Apologist, as much as I wouldn't mind another album in a similar style. I'm hoping the direction they take after this album turns back towards the heavier side of things and a bit less towards the technical screwery that overwhelms a bit too much of this album, but it's still worth checking out nonetheless.
Favorite Tracks: The Fractal Canopy, Noir Filter, I'm Always Fighting Drago, Obfuscator Dye
Least Favorite Tracks: Arbiters Meet, Excessive Convulsive
7.5/10
DTF Addendum: After this we're exactly halfway through the list! How about that. Feels like just yesterday, except for the fact that I wrote some of these three months ago. Also, the first 7.5 in a streak of many. I basically can't help but compare this to The Apologist for obvious reasons but it stands on its own well enough, though the middle is a bit meh.
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Sunbather is way too low
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:corn
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#34: Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words With Tones)
(https://www.metalsucks.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Intronaut-Habitual-Levitations.jpg)
If Valley of Smoke was a progressing sound that wasn't quite fully formed yet, lacking a song-based feel and leaving the album a haze of similar-sounding riffs and atmosphere that, then Habitual Levitations is Valley of smoke with better songwriting and sans the harsh vocals. I don't think the songs are any less heavier for it, though, not that Valley of Smoke had a ton of metal in it to begin with, but this is definitely still plenty heavy for me.
The biggest issue this album has, really, is that none of its songs are amazing; the first six are all quite good, and the last three are still pretty solid though not as strong. The very end of the album is also kind of obnoxious, three minutes of noise and then a vocal screech right at the end; I wouldn't mind the noise that much if it was a bit shorter, but the screech is completely unnecessary, just a weird way to end the album. Won't hold it against the last track though since it's basically disconnected.
One thing this album does in spades is have two-part songs; a heavier first half and an atmospheric groove in the second half. 5 of the 9 tracks do this, and 4 out of the 5 pull it off well enough that I don't mind them reusing the same structure so much. Killing Birds With Stones has a thrill ride of a first 5 minutes, with the last 3 pulling a guitar line used earlier in the song, putting it at a different tempo and straightening out its rhythm, and using it to build one hell of a great groove. The second bit of this groove is punctuated by some really punch guitar chords, and the bass throughout is fantastic. The front half of Steps is super sludgy and heavy, probably the purest sludge metal on the entire album, while the back half takes the brief guitar line at the very start and builds on it to get quite full by the end.
Milk Leg is a heavily rhythmic track with a lot of restraint for its first half, with a main chugging theme that repeats in the verses, and it takes this theme and builds on it with some really dreamy atmosphere on top while keeping that same rhythm going throughout, with probably my favorite bassline of the entire album throughout. One of my favorite moments on the entire album, for sure. Harmonomicon's atmospheric ending is a noticeable departure; for one, the first half of the track is very warm and laid-back, and the song actually gets faster-paced and less pretty at the end; instead of the ethereal dreaminess of the other songs, the song chooses to have a light post-metal groove followed by some really jazzy chords and, again, a great bassline. 'Tis a really strong ending to a great track.
The real deviation here is Eventual, which has an overly long back half that feels like it reaches its peak too early, leaving the last minute of the track to just fizzle out, and the atmosphere it builds isn't nearly as strong as the other four. It's a shame since the first half of this track has a ton of cool moments; a really unique and tense groove to start out, and a constantly shifting tempo between some grooving riffs and some laid-back sludge.
Another big strength of this album is its guitar works, especially the riffs; Killing Birds With Stones starts out with an excellent sludgy riff, later reprised for the chorus with some nice variations, and in the middle of the song is a strong triplet groove that I adore. The Welding starts out with some harsh chords and a nice sludgy riff, and the last third of the track introduces a frantic guitar line that makes its intense moments even more intense. Sore Sight For Eyes has a fantastic main riff to it that drives a strong post-metal feel. The Way Down has a pretty cool main riff and some wailing guitar lines, though the repetitiveness of this track takes a solid mood and kind of stretches it thin.
There's also the track Blood From a Stone, which is completely clean and primarily exists as an atmospheric breather between tracks.. that wasn't really necessary. The end of the previous track was also atmospheric, and the first two minutes of the next track are also quite atmospheric, and both those sections already felt a bit stretched out on their own; adding this track creates an 8-minute stretch completely based around atmosphere and lacking any real edge, which does cause the album to lose its momentum near the end. It's a shame since the track is really solid on its own, though nothing that special.
I'd also be remiss to not mention the lovely but brief bass solo at the start of Harmonomicon. Very lovely bit. I haven't commented on the drumwork much, but suffice to say, it's strong throughout; fitting the mood well and being technically pleasing all the while. And the vocals; honestly, I dig them, especially because of how often they're layered to create a very full sound, they sound soulful enough to convince me.
Really, the album as a whole would've probably benefited from being a bit shorter, since until halfway through the seventh track I have very little to complain about; and it's definitely a step up from their previous album, better songwriting and a better sense of direction, but it's not until their follow-up that I feel they really perfect the formula they had building here. That's not to discredit this album, though, as it's a strong progressive sludge metal record. Maybe still lacking in emotional depth somewhat, but in every other regard it's pretty strong and definitely worth looking into.
Favorite Tracks: Killing Birds With Stones, Milk Leg, Sore Sight for Eyes, Harmonomicon
Least Favorite Tracks: Eventual, Blood From a Stone
7.5/10
DTF Addendum: This is one of those weird albums where a lot of the songs are good and I enjoy them, but there's like, nothing really mindblowing here. I was a bit addicted to this when I first started spinning it but once the freshness wore off... well, I still liked it, just, not as intensely. Maybe this should be a few spots higher though, I dunno.
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Didn't age as well as Valley of Smoke. Some good songs but overall it faded away for me.
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#33: The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0548518451_16.jpg)
Honestly, my normal review process isn't going to cut it for an album like this. I could break down all the songs, but that'd be pointless. This is just not a song-focused album. It's an atmosphere-focused one. The proper way to listen to this is to turn up your speakers as loud as you can before your neighbors start complaining, sit down, close your eyes, and let the music destroy you.
This is a dark album. Not quite soul-crushingly dark, but very bleak and hopeless music. It's not an album I can listen to every day. It's probably one of the albums I've listened to the least from my 2015 collection, and not because it's bad or anything; I'm pretty sure it's actually amazing and I just can't fully appreciate it, but it's still pretty damn good.
The songs are all made of a lot of similar elements. Sluggish, sludgy guitar riffs, thick synth atmospheres, booming drums, ethereal, reverb-drenched vocals. Each song has a bit of its own flavor, but at the end of the day they aren't especially diverse.
The Promise of Snakes basically sets the mood, having all of these main elements in a pretty straightforward manner. Million Year Summer and Weighing Souls With Sand are slower and heavier though quite succinct. The Resonance of Goodbye and We All Die Laughing have some of the more interesting drum work and are both pretty moody. Dying in A Minor is probably the most subtle and bleak track on the album. World Deafening Eclipse has an out-of-character brighter intro but it's pretty brief. Burning in the Undertow of God is probably the most distressed and dissonant track of the album. The Smoke of Her Burning is pretty much the album in summary and a solid closer at that. The bonus track, How to Build a Time Machine, also has an oddly bright intro, though the rest of the track is particularly intense. I don't know why this was left as a "bonus" track honestly, it ends the album better than the actual closer.
Really though, I still wonder if I just don't quite "get" this album yet. It's kind of an exhausting listen but one that resonates pretty powerfully regardless, just not one I can say I'm full on board with quite yet.
Favorite Tracks: Dying in A-Minor, The Promise of Snakes, How to Build a Time Machine, Burning in the Undertow of God
Least Favorite Tracks: No point.
7.5/10
DTF Addendum: I showed this to Sacul and he turned around and liked it a lot more than I do, which is great :lol But I still like this a fair bit. This is also the only album because the DMM ones that I didn't get a physical copy of, because this one's rare as heck and crazy expensive to get a CD of, unfortunately. Reissue it goddammit.
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Ahh Dying In A-Minor, my favorite song of all time
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This record is fantastic :hefdaddy
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maybe it'll like really click for me one day, because i want to like this more than i do and it's probably the best them in terms of drone metal
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Listen to it when you really feel let down and sad, that's how it worked for me :tup
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but that's how i always feel
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Heard good things about it but haven't gotten around to checking it out yet
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#32: Alcest - Les Voyages de L'âme
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1570563727_10.jpg)
It's pretty easy to describe this album as "More Écailles de Lune", to which I say "aww yeah more Écailles de Lune sign me the hell up mmm". Yeah, I won't deny that it's a pretty straightforward continuation of the same sound, but it's a good sound that should be continued. I will say that the songs here feel a bit "poppier" in as vague of terms as that is, though I wouldn't really say that works against the album, it makes it a bit more accessible sure but it's still blackgaze at the end of the day.
Probably the two most straightforward tracks are the opener, Autre Temps, and especially Nous Sommes L'emeraude, both of which are also among the more relaxed tracks on the album. The latter, especially, is quite catchy despite me not knowing any of the lyrics.
Là Où Naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles and Faiseurs de Mondes are probably the two most intense tracks, both featuring heavier moments, frantic drumming, and being the only two tracks to feature growls. Of course, neither is nonstop heaviness and there's quieter breather moments in each track that keep them dynamic.
There's also the three in-between tracks; Les Voyages de L'âme, which is probably the slowest and most melancholy track on the record, a really nice balance of beauty and heaviness; Beings of Light, which is a really strange track, very ethereal vocals on top of an intense, blast-beat driven heavy atmosphere; and Summer's Glory, probably my favorite Alcest track, which is just pure joy to listen to, it's basically impossible to not be happy listening to this track.
The album has a strong flow to it and every song is great on its own, as well; the sound of the album just works for each of the tracks as well as the album as a whole. It's not an overly long album either, so the sound of the album doesn't have any time to wear itself thin. It's the kind of album you can put on every once in a while and know you'll have a pleasant, relaxing time listening to it. I almost kind of wish there were no harsh vocals at all, even with how infrequent they are here; nothing wrong with them and they always fit the mood of the song when they come in, but they still feel a bit out-of-place regardless. Oh well.
Really there's not a lot to say about an album like this. If you liked Écailles, you'll like this. Probably not quite as much, I'll definitely say its predecessor is the superior album, but that doesn't make this a bad album, far from it. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a nice atmospheric metal record with a fair amount of variation and a generally warm mood. It's definitely an album that knows what it wants to do and does it well, hard to fault the album for that.
Favorite Tracks: Summer's Glory, Les Voyages de L'âme, Beings of Light
Least Favorite Track: Havens, which feels like cheating, but...
7.5/10
DTF Addendum: I think this would be higher if it were more unique, and I'll admit that sometimes the songs on this album can blur a bit for me, but that being said this is still a lovely listen that I'd recommend to basically anyone.
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#31: Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.
#6 for 2015
(https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/lyricwiki/images/4/44/Steven_Wilson_-_Hand._Cannot._Erase..jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141201214947)
Steven Wilson finally decided to get over the 70's and produce an album that wasn't just nostalgia-pandering. Grace for Drowning was alright but kind of boring at times, Raven had a lot of fine music but none of it was particularly impressive and it was too stuck in the past to really come into life of its own (though the title track is one of the best tracks from any of Wilson's entire discography, easily). This album instead is infused with a more modern prog sound, though it doesn't abandon the 70's prog sound, and it's very distinct from both Wilson's other solo work and his Porcupine Tree albums. And it's... pretty good, yeah!
Not fantastic or anything, I'm not really blown away by any of these tracks like I am with the best Porcupine Tree songs. I can't really say there's anything close to a bad song here though; I quite dislike Routine for its music/lyrical dissonance (and its lyrics being just, far too dark/depressing to wring much enjoyment out of) but I can acknowledge that the song itself is generally fine, it sounds nice enough and the female vocals are great.
The biggest factor on this album is the "pop" sound it has, clearly. 3 Years Older and Hand Cannot Erase especially, but there's touches of it in Perfect Life and Happy Returns as well. Really straightforward and catchy hooks, but with just enough flavor to keep them interesting throughout. The album as a whole has an oddly bright feel to it, dipping into melancholy territory at times and a few darker moments in the back half, but there's a sparkly pop quality to a lot of these tracks that I think works pretty well.
The album also dabbles in a little of everything. There's some long proggy instrumentals like in 3 Years Older, a brighter one at the start and a much darker and chaotic one at the end, the first half of Home Invasion, which is the closest to metal this album gets, and has a ton of groove as well, and the gigantic 8-minute back half of Ancestral that doesn't drag despite its length - especially thanks to its killer riffs. Seriously, that first heavy riff is one of the best on the album. Regret #9 is a simpler instrumental, being mostly two long solos, a synth one and a guitar one, and it's got a much different vibe than the instrumental work on the rest of the album that works well. Each song really stands out on its own, no two tracks blend together.
As expected from a Steven Wilson project, the instrumentation even during non-instrumental parts is top-notch. There's plenty of subtleties throughout the tracks, especially 3 Years Older, and enough variety in the poppier moments to keep them engaging aside from their catchy hooks. The album is generally rather good at setting a mood (Routine being the notable exception, again) and while there's plenty of melancholy-tinged bright moments, there are still a number of darker moments as well; when the spoken-word story of Perfect Life takes a darker turn, the music does as well, and the entire first 5 minutes of Ancestral are crushingly depressive in the best way; everything from the 3 minute mark to the start of the instrumental is absolutely breathtaking, easily the best moment of the album. Transcience also has a darker tone to it, though the brighter vocal melodies do make it a bit ambiguous. Happy Returns is probably the most somber track, a huge feeling of melancholy to it, especially considering its role story-wise, it's a great and gorgeous closer to the album, Wilson doing sad music as well as I've come to expect from him.
Really, there's not much to dislike here, but there's also not a lot to love. I especially like some moments from the last two tracks, and there's a fair bit of stuff in 3 Years Older, Home Invasion, and Regret #9 that resonates with me as well, but despite liking the other tracks, I'm past the point where they do much for me. The songs are kind of catchy, yeah, but not strong enough for me to really want them stuck in my head. It's still definitely worth checking out, regardless, probably my favorite of Wilson's solo albums yet, but don't go expecting a modern masterpiece and you probably won't be disappointed.
Favorite Tracks: Ancestral, Happy Returns, 3 Years Older, Regret #9, Home Invasion
Least Favorite Track: Routine
7.5/10
DTF Addendum: Slaughtering another sacred cow, except this one actually is quite good and easily Wilson's best solo release. Got pretty tired of it pretty quick though and don't really go back to revisit it anymore.
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Definitely his weakest solo album and I'd rank it quite low for 2015 myself. Not bad, but not great either. Kinda like The Incident 2.0.
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Probably my favourite album of last year, I love it and it's closely tied with GfD as my #1 of his solo records. Yet all the proggy bits and moments are my least favourite of the record tbh - I'd love HCE even more had those been cut a bit.
And Routine is depressing in a fantastic way :loser:
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Routine is really the only song on the album that sticks out in a good way. 3 Years Older is essentially Xanadu, Ancestral drags on for way too long, Regret #9 enters DT levels of wankery and Home Invasion sounds almost like a bad Periphery influence at times. I think what bothers me the most is how OK everything is and how little of it really sticks out. Songs like Happy Returns and the title track are good on paper, and SW has done similar songs great before, but it's the case of doing something he has done before but not as good. Happy Returns is good, but it's no Deform to Form a Star or The Raven That Refused to Sing. Or even Insurgentes.
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nobody can agree on steven wilson and that's fine
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So I'm the only one who came to comment on alcest? Ok
I like the structure on this album that you pointed out, it's clearly a bit more focused on the opening/core/ending structure than most albums I heard and makes this one of those albums I could never listen to separate songs of.
Summers Glory is arguably my least favorite song on the album though, even below Havens :lol I just don't like the vocal melodies at all, theyre definitely different from the alcest im used to.
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The Alcest one is a good album! I feel like with Alcest, they haven't put out that one amazing album, they've put out a few really good albums but not one that 100% delivers. I would say Ecailles De Lune comes the closest, but even that has maybe 1 song I don't care for as much as the rest. Maybe their next one will be the best?
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7.5 is about what I'd give Hand. Cannot. Erase too. Maybe a little higher, but otherwise a pretty accurate score for me. It and Raven are probably my two favorite of his.
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The heavy parts in the Ancestral instrumental are much closer to metal than the Home Invasion intro. Probably the heaviest thing he's done since The Incident.
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I loved it. One of my favorites of 2015, if not #1.
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this one actually is quite good and easily Wilson's best solo release. Got pretty tired of it pretty quick though and don't really go back to revisit it anymore.
Same.
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but even that has maybe 1 song I don't care for as much as the rest.
curious, because i feel the same way, which song :corn
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but even that has maybe 1 song I don't care for as much as the rest.
curious, because i feel the same way, which song :corn
Solar Song and to a lesser extent the final song. Don't get me wrong, neither are bad, but I love the first 3 and once the album reaches the second half it isn't AS good IMO.
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nobody can agree on steven wilson and that's fine
Yep. I thought HCE was good but nothing exciting. I'd probably rate around where you do, maybe a bit lower.
The only SW album that I unreservedly love is The Raven... I think it's clearly above everything else I've heard from him. I think the last four PT albums are pretty good. I don't get the hate for The Incident at all. But I also can't agree with the extravagant praise that Wilson gets. I think he's very talented, but a lot of his music just doesn't do much for me. In Absentia-The Incident and The Raven That Refused to Sing are the only ones I'd bother including in a list of favorites.
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#30: Saor - Aura
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1739750011_10.jpg)
There's one definite thing to say about this album and what's most striking about it on first listen: It's goddamn beautiful. Stunningly gorgeous music. This is far removed from the depressive wallowing of black metal. It's not exactly the brightest album ever by any means, but it's far more triumphant than anything else.
That being said, the one thing that would definitely make this album sound even better - slightly better production. Yeah, maybe this is a silly critique to make of black metal but I think this album could benefit from slightly crisper production. Not too much crisper, but as it stands everything does sound slightly too washed-out and the production can be a distraction, but it's only a minor one.
And it's definitely a "what you see is what you get" kind of album. The general sound of the album: Beautiful flute melodies, heavy guitar textures or chugging riffs, a gorgeous layer of strings, some quieter clean parts to make the tracks more dynamic. And of course, drumming from Austin Lunn of Panopticon, who does a good job complementing the music while also providing some interesting drumwork throughout.
And the sound as a whole works, definitely. The album isn't especially long, clocking in at just under an hour, and it's primarily an atmospheric experience, though filled with enough variation to keep you interested throughout its long, winding tracks. Really, the "weakest" track of the bunch is the least adventurous one, the title track. It's still quite good, but it's a fair bit more repetitive than the rest of the album, with its main riff and main flute theme getting played a lot.
You can still expect a number of heavy moments, gorgeous moments, and calmer moments in each track, nonetheless. As far as heavy moments go, basically any moment with flute playing over the thick atmosphere is fantastic, and the first two tracks have great riffs throughout. As far as gorgeous moments, gosh. Either of the two string-drenched breaks in Children of the Mist, any moment with the choir on The Awakening, and the last few minutes of Pillars of the Earth probably steal the show. For calmer moments, pretty much every track has a great one starting it off; The Awakening with a very folky acoustic vibe, Farewell with an almost post-metal style buildup, and a cross of the two in Pillars of the Earth. Pillars also has a very laidback section in the middle that I adore.
There's really not a lot to talk about here; this album is primarily about the atmosphere, keeping the songwriting just interesting enough to still make for solid active listening material, but I always feel it's better to just get lost in the gorgeous music on display here and let it wash over you, close your eyes and imagine the landscape the music paints. I wouldn't call it perfect, but it's definitely a worthy listen.
Favorite Tracks: Pillars of the Earth, Children of the Mist
Least Favorite Track: Aura
7.5/10
DTF Addendum: I know the production quality argument could go on for days but I don't really care, this is definitely a case where the album could've been better with slightly better production and I will hear no counterargument to that fact. Like, maybe only a bit better, in the 8.0-8.25 range, but still. And it's not like it's bad or anything either.
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Another one of those albums I've heard good things about but haven't gotten around to checking out
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Damn the production makes this album unlistenable, even though some parts are pretty interesting.
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Pretty interesting album but I'm not always in mood for such music.
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The song you sent me was pretty good, but I agree, this could really benefit from a better production.
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#29: Baroness - Yellow
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1943492373_10.jpg)
I won't really ever understand why when a metal band lightens its sound a little (and I do mean a little; Baroness were never -that- heavy and it's not like this album is an acoustic folk album or anything, it gets pretty intense at points). Who cares, as long as the music is good? "But it sounds like boring radio rock" they say. Uhh. What radio do you listen to, and can you tell me so I can listen too?
These aren't watered-down tracks stripped of anything interesting to make the music more accessible. There's as much musical complexity to these tracks as on Red (and presumably Blue, which I haven't yet purchased but whatever). And on top of that, what's been added is a stronger sense of melody, a heightened sense of passion. Yes, there are catchy choruses. I don't understand how that's a bad thing. I like catchy choruses, they help make songs more memorable. Nothing wrong with that.
And this album has consistently strong choruses as well. Eula easily has the best on pure power and passion alone, but March to the Sea's combination of a thick sound, harmonized vocals, and a bright noodly guitar line comes close. Take My Bones Away is probably the most straightforward track of the entire album and has an instantly memorable chorus to accompany it. And Little Things has, while maybe not the strongest chorus, at least an interesting one. The combination of the roaring guitar line, the twinkly clean guitar, and the almost bitter vocals lends it quite a sinister vibe.
And even outside of choruses there are a lot of strong vocal lines here. Back Where I Belong doesn't really have a chorus, period, but has a haunting performance from Baizley, especially the brighter outro at around 4 minutes. Twinkler as well, the vocal harmonies are even more haunting here, especially the ending with nothing but thick synth accompanying them.
The instrumental star of this album is, really, the bass. Dominates the groove of a lot of these songs and is consistently prominent in the tracks, even during the heavier moments. From the heavy bridge of Take My Bones Away, the straight and driving rhythm of the verses in March to the Sea, the strong groove of Cocanium, the slower groove of Back Where I Belong, and the frantic energy of Sea Lungs, the bass drives them all. It's really what defines this album aside from the melancholic atmosphere running throughout, probably the two most prominent features.
There's a ton of cool instrumental moments otherwise, though. Special mention goes out to Little Things' fantastic outro, with some harmonized guitar work and an absolutely killer groove. Some of the other stronger moments are the harmonized guitar solo of Back Where I Belong and the climax of Eula with its wailing guitar lead, and the drumming on Sea Lungs throughout definitely deserves special mention as well, one of the key factors in driving that track's overwhelming energy.
I think overall this album is about split between really strong tracks and good tracks that don't stand out as much; Yellow Theme is excused from the split here being a short instrumental to set the mood, of course. Aside from the intro track, the odd-numbered songs here all outshine the even-numbered ones pretty clearly, but that's not to discredit the quality of the other tracks; Cocanium is the only kind of disappointing track, mostly for how long it takes to really start up and not being especially compelling even when it does, but it's not a bad song either.
As far as experimenting with a different, lighter and somewhat more accessible sound, I think Baroness did well here. I don't think they had to sacrifice anything to make it happen; they prove they can still rock pretty hard and the songs aren't repetitive or oversimplified to make them "easier" to approach. They just made some damn fine, soulful hard rock tracks and some haunting ballads, and did it well.
Favorite Tracks: Eula, Twinkler, Back Where I Belong, March to the Sea
Least Favorite Track: Cocanium
7.75/10
DTF Addendum: Wow, it's taken a while to get to the first of the Baroness albums. I guess that's because the band is pretty consistently good.
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Baroness has never clicked for me unfortunately. I kinda think of them as a poor man's Mastodon (which might be unfair), and considering I don't like Mastodon much at all, I guess that's unfortunate. :lol
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i dunno, they're not that similar to mastodon imo, and yellow is leagues better than the hunter
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i dunno, they're not that similar to mastodon imo, and yellow is leagues better than the hunter
Yellow/Green are the only ones I've listened to in full and those are definitely different than Mastodon, but I think I heard some of their earlier songs that were more sludge-y/progg-y and dismissed them as a Mastodon-sounding band. And with Yellow/Green not really clicking for me either, I didn't care to pursue them more.
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#28: East of the Wall - Ressentiment
(https://www.metalmusicarchives.com/images/covers/east-of-the-wall-ressentiment.jpg)
After basically falling in love with the band's follow-up, The Apologist, I just had to get some of their other albums. I was pretty certain I wouldn't like either of them as much, but I still figured I'd get a good amount of great music out of them both. Was I right in the case of Ressentiment?
Well... yes, and no. If I'm gonna be blunt, there's only three tracks here that reach the quality of the majority of The Apologist; Wisp of Tow, Fleshmaker, and Maybe I'm Malaised. As well, The Ladder and Handshake in Your Mouth are among my least favorite tracks from the band, though they're still both pretty solid.
I think where this album fails for me a little is the lack of really memorable moments. There's still plenty, to be sure; the climactic middle of Salieri with the horns, the majority of Wisp of Tow but especially the riff that kicks in around 2 minutes, pretty much any moment of Fleshmaker as well, especially the heavier ones, the thumping bass and drum groove in the middle of Maybe I'm Malaised, the break at 4:35 of A Long Defeat is a really neat moment, the groove of Beasteater at 5:30 into the track. There's a lot of other little moments that I like a fair bit, and really not a lot that I dislike, but there's not a constant stream of them in most tracks like The Apologist has.
And it's really not fair to compare this album to that one, even if I kind of reflexively end up doing so. On its own? This is a damn fine record, really, though definitely a difficult one to get into. Basically every element that makes The Apologist work is here too.
The drum work on this album is incredible, ridiculously diverse and really great at driving the feel of the song without ever feeling excessive. Wisp of Tow has a strong drum-driven groove to it, Ocean of Water is just loaded with really cool drum moments, Fleshmaker as well, though the most interesting moment is this brief bit of muted hihats in a really straightforward time, it works really well and I can't explain why. The chorus in the earlier parts of A Long Defeat is punctuated by a really intense drum moment, and a lot of interesting polyrhythmic stuff in Beasteater. It's plenty satisfying stuff.
The bass on this album... honestly, the tone here is probably even better than on The Apologist, really juicy and thick. it just sounds excellent. Practically every track has a cool bass moment in it somewhere, too; the break in the middle of The Ladder, the sludgy intro of Salieri, a really meaty bassline at 4:45 of Fool's Errand, again basically every part of Wisp of Tow, the guitar/bass harmonies of Ocean of Water and the jazzy break in the middle, the groove of the "give it away" section in Fleshmaker, the entirety of Maybe I'm Malaised, the dark bassline of Gordian Corridor, and the fantastic groove at the start of Beasteater. It's really satisfying in regards to the bass, easily.
Vocally this album is a bit weaker than The Apologist; a lot more harsh vocals here, and while they sound fine there's a bit too many for my tastes. Most of my favorite vocal moments are clean-sung; the horn climax of Salieri, the melancholy of the second half of Fool's Errand, around 1:35 of Fleshmaker where the song drops out for a cleaner moment, the aforementioned early choruses of A Long Defeat have a ton of power behind them. That's not to say the harsh vocals don't have their moments; the climax at the end of Ocean of Water is driven by some intense vocals, the harsh vocals of the heavier moments of Fleshmaker and even the lighter "give it away" bits, the groove at 2:40 of Beasteater also has some pretty intense harsh vocals. It's solid overall in this regard, though not fantastic.
The guitar work on this album covers pretty much every bass I can think of; there's a fair number of dissonant moments, especially in The Ladder, there's the jazzy moments of Salieri, Wisp of Tow, Ocean of Water, Fleshmaker, and Beasteater, all of which are primarily driven by the guitars. There's some pretty intense riffs, the aforementioned riff in Wisp of Tow, the main riff of Ocean of Water, the intense chugging of Fleshmaker, the chugging of Don't Stop Bereaving, the groove of the riff at 2:40 of Beasteater. There's a ton of pretty post-rock-ish moments scattered throughout on most every track. There's even some guitar solos, really jagged and sloppy ones in Salieri and Handshake in Your Mouth, with more melodic-oriented ones in Ocean of Water and Beasteater.
The album really does have a lot of flavor, too; I can't think of any other band who would put the jazzy elevator music break It's Always Worthwhile... on their album, for one, and the jazziness throughout the album is quite pleasant. There's a good variety of moods in general; dissonant, heavy, melodic, atmospheric, sludgy. It's got a little of everything... and that may be its downfall, perhaps it tries to do a bit too much and ends up a bit incohesive as a result. Sure, each track is plenty unique, but do they all belong together on the same album? That, I'm not so sure of. I think if the album had been stripped down a little and refined in general it would've come out a lot better; basically, exactly what I imagine happened to The Apologist, which is 15 minutes shorter and has only the tiniest of fat that could be possibly trimmed.
But I digress. Do I like this album? Yeah. I'm still not sure I quite "get" it. Enough time has passed now that I can be fairly certain it's never going to be my jam like The Apologist is, but it's still a record I see myself revisiting. Not a great record, and a bit of a messy one on the whole, but still pretty solid with a lot of good music on it.
Favorite Tracks: Fleshmaker, Wisp of Tow, Maybe I'm Malaised, Ocean of Water
Least Favorite Tracks: Handshake in Your Mouth, The Ladder
7.75/10
DTF Addendum: This album frustrates me because it's got moments of brilliance in some of the mid-tier songs and the entire run from Wisp of Tow to Maybe I'm Malaised is about on par with The Apologist but the album is dragged down by its weaker moments. Most notably, all of the Biclops tracks are among my favorites here, so I'm wondering where the weaker ones came from after the merge. I feel like this album has a very troubled backstory and it's practically a compilation album that they could've refined into something so much better, but agh. They delivered with their follow-up anyways, so I don't know why I'm complaining.
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If I ever run a roulette again, I expect you to send me a song from this band.
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you would be 100% Correct
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I remember listening to a song by them a few years ago, at least once but not digging it, but after getting into post-metal I probably should give them a chance again.
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I think I love Yellow/Green more than any other Baroness record. They are a great band but I've found that my favourite songs of theirs are ALWAYS the instrumentals!! Stretchmarker and Green Theme being perfect examples. I like Baizley's voice but the instrumentals just do it for me everytime :hefdaddy
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well, remember that I haven't gotten to Green yet, and it is 100% on the list :tup
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#27: Intronaut - Prehistoricisms
(https://www.amoeba.com/admin/uploads/albums/covers/other//intronaut_prehistoricisms.jpg)
This is a difficult album to talk about, mainly for one reason; that epic closer of a track, a post-metal masterpiece in its own right. It doesn't really fit in that snugly with the sound of the rest of the album but there's definitely some connection. And it's not like the rest of the album is bad; it's actually quite good, though probably the only other great track is Any Port, it's hard to point out any moment of weakness on this album, and in general it's a lot more diverse than the two albums that followed it.
A lot of the songs on this album are very... balanced, for lack of a better term. Every song has at least one really killer heavy riff in it, nearly every song has a nice atmospheric break somewhere in it, there's equal parts of dissonant sludginess and warmer post-metal sound, and there's always a nice progressive flair to the tracks, they're never too straightforward but never get lost in technicality and still all come out sounding pretty strong.
As far as killer riffs go, The Literal Black Cloud made have the strongest of them all, a chug-heavy but really addicting main riff. Cavernous Den of Shame has a pretty frantic main riff too, Prehistoricisms having easily the most dissonant, Any Port the brightest, Sundial the most jagged and lumbering, and Australopithecus... well, doesn't really have a "main" riff but there's a thick, slow riff matched with polyrhythmic drums that makes for a few pretty awesome moments. And The Reptilian Brain has some crushing riffs in its third and fourth phases, especially the latter, which is just really damn intense.
The atmospheric breaks on the album are also quite diverse, and more often than not driven by the bass, with guitars just creating atmosphere. The Literal Black Cloud has a really cool bassline during its softer moments, Cavernous Den of Shame switches between a more upbeat, jagged bassline and a really warm one, Any Port is more atmosphere than anything else with bass driving the main motif, Sundial in its quieter moments is driven by this really strange, lumbering bassline, though there's a more straightforward atmospheric break towards the middle, Australopithecus has probably the most gorgeous break of the entire album, a strong bassline as well as some really lovely guitar melodies, and most of The Reptilian Brain is relatively atmospheric, from the long, hypnotic first phase driven by bass and tribal drums, as well as the second and fifth phases that have locked drum grooves, thick basslines, and nice layers of guitar texture.
One thing this album does really well is the balance of dissonance and melody. Take Prehistoricisms for example, probably the most dissonant track of the bunch, with its screeching intro noise and really sludgy main riff, among other things; there's a fair few more melodic and warm post-metal styled heavy breaks scattered throughout the track. The Literal Black Cloud also does this really neat thing where a dissonant guitar riff from earlier is reprised in a much more melodic fashion. There's traces of this throughout the entire album; they just strike a really good balance and neither part gets boring because of the variety.
I also have to give props to the drumming, which is, unsurprisingly, really tasteful and technical throughout. Walker knows how to play an engaging drum line without overshadowing the rest of the band, but still being diverse and technical enough to stay interesting on its own. There's a lot of tom-heavy drumming, some straightforward metal bits, a fair bit of jazzier rhythms in the more relaxed moments, as well as the first 5 minutes of The Reptilian Brain which are primarily just bongos. And let's not forget the fantastic drum duet at the end of Any Port, such a well-constructed moment, never get tired of it.
I sort of wish there were some clean vocals here, but there's not a ton of vocal presence here throughout, which leaves a lot of focus on the instrumentation, and to be fair this is always the more interesting part of any Intronaut album. Not like the harsh vocals are bad or anything either, they're solid but unremarkable really.
Really, it's hard to knock this album, even if I'm not fully behind it as a whole it's still always an enjoyable listen and it ends in one heck of a high note while being otherwise pretty consistent. It's probably their most diverse album to date, and a really ambitious album in its own right, even if it doesn't stick the landing every time. And The Reptilian Brain is easily the band's best track, probably one of the best post-metal tracks I've ever heard, so, yeah, there's that.
Favorite Tracks: The Reptilian Brain, Any Port, Australopithecus
Least Favorite Tracks: Sundial
7.75/10
DTF Addendum: Yeah this is definitely the case of one song bringing the album up a few nothces, without The Reptilian Brain I'd probably place most of this a bit below Habitual Levitations but it's just such a good song.
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:corn
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oh yeah, nobody got the top 5 right :corn
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I don't think I've listened to this one actually, only Valley of Smoke and forward. Might check it out.
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#26: Being - Anthropocene
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s0KICtr-Kbo/Urpjh01-HaI/AAAAAAAAA1w/55evyz6idQY/s1600/COVER.jpg)
I think my kneejerk reaction to this album was a bit weird, I really liked it at first, grew a bit tired of it after only a few listens, then came back to it much later after purchasing it and quite liked it again. And I think the main reason for my exhaustion was its length; the album isn't short, certainly, but... it shouldn't have been this long.
Let's get this out of the way: The 8 minutes of symphonic reprises at the end of the album was not a good idea. It stretches the album out way too long and I'm not really sure it adds much to the album, since all the vocals here aren't new. It's kind of a shame, since honestly, the orchestration sounds lovely and there's a ton of cool moments during this block of reprises, but I have to wonder why the decision to stick this long block of very similar stuff at the end of the album was made. Why not apply it all throughout the album's runtime and add a nice symphonic flair throughout? I get that technically the symphonic stuff was done by a guest artist, but... meh. It's a shame that it's stuck sitting at the very end and going on for so long though, it really is, because it works against itself in rather frustrating ways.
With that out of the way we can get on to the positives. And there are a lot of them. I may be guilty of letting the choruses on this album overshadow a lot of the rest. Because at the end of the day, this is actually quite poppy for djent or progressive metal in general. A lot rides on the vocals of this album. And... well, the main vocalist isn't great, but the vocal melodies he sings are often quite great to the point where I don't mind if the vocal quality itself is a little weak.
The choruses especially though are the strong point, for sure. DNA, Mindflay, Perpetual Groove, Escape, Sorrow, Air Atlantic, and The Singularity - Cosmists II all have FANTASTIC choruses, ranging from powerful to grooving to uplifting to emotionally intense to just outright massive. The only chorus I don't really like is Story for a Muse, which just feels a bit lifeless and stiff. There's a number of cool vocal moments outside choruses, though. A Part, Apart has a nice vocal melody, as do Perpetual Groove and Sorrow, and Escape is just absolutely loaded with wonderful vocal moments, especially the "we go" buildup in the middle.
The album definitely does have some djent influence to it, especially during Mindflay, Perpetual Groove, and Air Atlantic, but I don't think it's a prevalent sound on the album, more used as an element. There's a strong melodic focus throughout and the heavier moments are never really crushingly heavy nor empty and robotic-sounding. The production on the guitars is quite a bit less crisp than your average djent record which I honestly prefer, it sounds a lot warmer and more alive.
The other major musical component here is, actually, electronic work. There's a bit of an influence in most of the tracks, with it taking the forefront in songs like Escape and Sorrow; the former having a lot of bright synth lines, though also a weird out-of-place dubstep moment, the latter having a lot of electronic percussion and subtleties throughout. The last two tracks both deserve a mention too, the entire first half of Terrans is a quieter electronic build and there's synth work driving the second half as well, and there's a gorgeous electronic break in Cosmists that works as a nice cooldown moment for a rather intense track.
There's not really a lot of "standout" musical moments here, but there's a pretty consistent quality here nonetheless. DNA has a lot of nice melodic guitar work, Mindflay has some killer riffs, Perpetual Groove's riffing has a ton of... well, groove, Sorrow has some fantastic piano and clean guitar work, Air Atlantic has some more killer riffs and a great main melody driven by piano, and the guitar and drums of The Singularity - Cosmists II creates a nice frantic feel.
Really though at the end of the day, yeah, it comes down to how catchy and relistenable a lot of these tracks are. Strong enough choruses to stay in your head and not get tiring after multiple listens, with enough going on in the instrumentation for you to notice new things each time you listen and diverse enough to keep things interesting. I will again have to admit that I may like this album more than it deserves, since I'm well aware of its flaws, but I sort of feel they don't come close to outweighing the positives here. It definitely stands out among other djent and progressive metal albums, too, not quite fitting comfortably into either and having its electronic elements to give it more flavor on top of that. Really solid album all-around though, regardless.
Favorite Track: Air Atlantic, The Singularity - Cosmists II, Sorrow, DNA, Perpetual Groove, Mindflay
Least Favorite Tracks: Story for a Muse, A Part, Apart
7.75/10
DTF Addendum: Oh hey, it's that one album I put on my first Top 50 list even though I'd barely listened to it. I mean, looking back on it, I wasn't exactly wrong, though I don't know if it would be on my top 50 list if I did one today. Probably not. Still good though.
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Nice album cover! Not sure if I would like it that much since djent/prog is not my go-to genre but might check out a tune or two.
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0/10 not Periphery :neverusethis:
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it's really poppy as far as djent goes but it doesn't have the whiny high-pitched vocals a lot of djent like periphery and tesseract has
not that those are bad vocals, just
and i mean there are guest features like that too, sure, so :corn
random parts of this album still get stuck in my head every so often and i haven't listened to it for at least a month or two at this point so
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This album is a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some of it is decent but then a lot of it is fairly meh aswell.
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#25: Caligula's Horse - Bloom
#5 for 2015
(https://caligulashorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BLOOM-Teaser-V1.png)
This is a very... standard album. I don't think it's pushing any boundaries, and while Caligula's Horse definitely have their own unique sound, there's not a lot of experimentation being done with here. On the other hand, despite not being particularly adventurous this is still a damn solid album. Not outstanding, but. Quite good. Would I recommend it over their other ones? Maybe their debut, but not their previous; that's more a testament to the consistent quality of Caligula's Horse albums than it is about this one's weaknesses.
The main strength of this album actually comes from the tighter songs that are arguably less "progressive" but make up for it by all being damn fine metal tracks. On the other hand, the longer tracks feel a bit less polished and both feel a bit drawn out, as well. Dragonfly has some stellar moments but feels like a weirdly constructed song, and Daughter of the Mountain never really surpasses being "alright" but doesn't really have any weak moments either.
What elements of this album work best, then. Hmm. Let's start with... the riffs. There are a TON of awesome riffs here. Suspect #1 and easily the best riff the band has ever done, heck, perhaps the best djenty riff I've ever heard, is the main riff of Marigold. Savor it; they will never write a riff quite that perfect again. Heavy, groovy, catchy and addictive, it's near perfection. Not that the other tracks are lacking cool riffs. Rust probably comes in second place with an awesome djenty riff following each chorus, again better than most any pure djent I've ever heard, and as well the main riff of the track is very frantic and driving, accentuated by the drums. The brighter tracks still have cool riffs, too; the prechorus of Firelight has a strong groove to it, and Turntail has maddeningly catchy riffs throughout, especially during the chorus.
The quality of the guitar work doesn't end there, though. Vallen has always been the heard of the band and he delivers some great solos as well as some strong guitar leads in general. The laid-back solo in Bloom, the guitar work throughout Firelight but especially that opening guitar line and the two solos later on in the song, the jagged and intense solo/unison in the middle of Firefly, the main guitar line of Turntail and even the cleaner moments of the track as well. Really, the only songs the guitar doesn't have any standout moments on are the last two, and Undergrowth at least gets the excuse of being a vocal-driven song using guitars just as a backdrop.
Speaking of, the vocals on this album are great too. Grey's voice is a good fit for the music and he delivers a ton of powerful performances. My single favorite moment of the entire album may be the "on your knees now... WAKE UP" moment where Bloom really kicks in, it's just fantastically chilling. The choruses on this album are generally strong too, Marigold, Firelight, and Rust especially. Special mention also goes to the last few minutes of Firefly that are particularly intense, the "even gods and their feet of clay" break in Turntail, and the entirety of Undergrowth, which is for as simple a song it is quite powerful and intense, probably the best vocal performance of the entire album.
I will say that bass feels a little underplayed/underpresent throughout this album and while there are moments where the drums do some cool things, they feel a bit underplayed as well. It's not a huge problem and I don't really think it detracts from the album in any significant way, I would've liked to see them both get a bit more love.
No, the real detractors here boil down to two major complaints. One. What the hell is up with Dragonfly's structure. After the guitar solo in the middle, the song cuts into a piano reprise of the main theme leading into one last chorus. And then the song is over... just kidding, 3 minutes left to go. And, despite that those 3 minutes are the best part of the song, the weird structure of the song makes them feel like they drag even despite enjoying them immensely.
Two. Daughter of the Mountain feels like an arbitrarily stretched out song; the chorus is repeated far too much, especially near the end, and the song definitely feels like it meanders about in the middle for a bit too long. Apart from the chorus I never find much of this track memorable at all, and while it's solid it definitely holds the album back a little.
When my biggest problems can be boiled down that simply, though, that generally means an album is quite good. I think the safer nature of the album and its small weaknesses hold it back from being truly great, but regardless it's still definitely an album worth checking out if you're a fan of prog metal or really metal in general, it's a fairly accessible album in spite of the technicality on display here, which may be a stroke of genius on its own.
Also, that album cover is gorgeous. Just saying.
Favorite Tracks: Marigold, Firelight, Turntail, Rust
Least Favorite Tracks: Daughter of the Mountain, Dragonfly
7.75/10
DTF Addendum: Caligula's Horse will always be my hipster cred band and they haven't released a bad album yet so I hope to see that trend continue, even if this isn't as great as their previous. Doesn't help that I'm moving away from this kind of prog metal lately, but I can still recognize quality when I hear it, sure.
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2hipster4me
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I agree fully with the addendum, but it's also better than you make it out to be.
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I can't find any bad tracks or moments in this album. I was starting to write something "swap Firelight, Rust and Turntail with Daughter Of The Mountain and Dragonfly in your favourite's list", but those three are perfect songs for what they do, it's just that I rarely listen to them and it's only a matter of personal taste.
I didn't find weird the structure of Dragonfly, instead since the first time I listened to its chorus I've always doubt if it was copied from other songs. I don't know if I remember something similar from other songs or maybe it's a melody so natural that makes me think that some other bands must have invented it before.
My ranking:
1. Bloom + Marigold
2. Dragonfly
3. Daughter Of The Mountain
4. Undergrowth
5. Firelight
6. Rust
7. Turntail
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#24: Skyharbor - Guiding Lights
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81r2B6WHOKL._SL1500_.jpg)
There's a pretty significant distance between myself and this album, at this point; I got it near the start of 2015 and gave it a ton of spins because I didn't have a lot of new music at that point in time, and set it aside some time later when I did have new music, not really revisiting it much at all since then. I sort of feel like I'm biased to like it because of how fondly I remember it, but then thinking about it I realize this just means it's a good album that I still recognize as a good album even after all this time.
I started out my review of this, as I do with all my reviews, by going track-by-track through the album and taking notes on all of them, but by the fourth track I realized I was more just commenting on the album as a whole than any of the individual tracks themselves.
In most cases that would be a bad thing, but here... well, this is hardly an album of songs, at the end of the day. It's music that strikes a particularly mood and does it well enough to stay interesting the whole way through its 68-minute journey, while not having many specific moments that overshadow others or any moments of weakness.
It's an album where I'm kind of glad I don't really have any of the tracks memorized or ever really remember which track is which; it doesn't really matter here. It's a sound more than it is songs, and they all do it quite well.
The production on this album is basically perfect for what it's trying to accomplish; there's just enough crunch to the heavier moments, but still enough thick atmosphere to keep that ethereal sound, and of course the lighter moments have just the right amount of reverb to give them a full, lush sound. It sounds great, consistently.
There's clearly some djent influence here, but it's never overpowering and just serves to compliment the mood. There's some chuggy riffs, sure, and some of the polyrhythmic drumming, but they're always balanced out with the more full sound of the album, thick soundscapes, and lots of softer moments in each track to keep the album dynamic. Tompkins' vocal style is pretty obviously similar to the cleans you'd tend to hear from djent groups, too, but it's not really a whiny, nasal pitch that he sings in, and he fits right in with the music here.
Each instrument is given plenty of room to breathe, as well. There's some nice guitar riffs, some noodly guitar leads, and of course twinkly cleaner guitar moments, while the drums tend to drive the mood and pace of the tracks more than any of the other instruments, and the bass provides a nice thick sound and a fair number of cool grooves to form the backbone of each track. It's perhaps a bit less present than the other instruments but still important here all the same.
As for song structures, it's generally easier to just talk about the album as a whole than any individual songs. There's not really a ton of standout, memorable moments, but on the entire album there's really only one moment, the spoken word sample at the end of Halogen, that doesn't really work; everything else? Not a weak moment to be found. There's generally a mix of some upbeat, pretty heavy moments, some more downbeat heavy moments with some groove behind them, softer and atmospheric moments that have a relaxing and dreamy sound to them, and generally a pretty powerful chorus somewhere in each track as well. They're elements that all work and most every track uses all these elements together to create dynamic and engaging songs that you can just as easily zone out to.
Honestly, it's an album that pretty much fully met my expectations for what it wanted to deliver. Pleasant, intense, atmospheric, powerful, relaxing, pretty. It's not an album I turn to to put on any specific songs that I can't get out of my head, just an album to put on and have a nice time listening to.
Favorite Tracks: New Devil, Idle Minds, The Constant, Guiding Lights
Least favorite Track: Halogen? But barely.
7.75/10
DTF Addendum: This is one that I got early enough into 2015 that it feels weird even including it here, but it's also quite good and coming back to it when I wrote the review I found it a lot more fresh and compelling than I expected somehow.
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I think the safer nature of the album... hold(s) it back from being truly great
And here in one sentence is the difference between you and me.
I don't actually know the album in question, but I thought it was worth commenting on this line.
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I don't get what you're getting at tbh :P
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I think Guiding Lights is great. Like you said, the spoken word section of Halogen doesn't work. In fact, I've only heard it once since I can't bear to listen to it one more time. But the rest of Halogen is very nice.
The title track is probably Tompkin's best work to date I'd say. I love that song.
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I don't get what you're getting at tbh :P
Well, the stupid bbcode crossed out part of the line when I didn't mean to do that, so that was a problem.
But I'm getting at how, for you, it matters how experimental or risky an album is, while for me that doesn't matter at all. Essentially, "it's too safe" is never something I would cite as a reason for ranking an album lower.
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being safe isn't inherently bad, but it makes albums turn out a bit samey at times, and yeah my top 20 doesn't exactly have a lot of safe albums on it thinking about it
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See, I think of "safe" and "samey" as totally different things. Like, Color Before the Sun is a pretty safe album, but I wouldn't call it samey, because there are a lot of different types of songs on there (I'd call Year of the Black Rainbow both safe and samey).
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That Being album sounds interesting, might even actually discover good music from a Parama top albums list wtf :corn
Guiding Lights is just fantastic, my favorite song is easily Patience though. It's the Steven Wilson effect.
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Everyone else is commenting on the actual albums and I'm just being so annoying and hectoring Parama about random things :P
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Guiding Lights is just fantastic, my favorite song is easily Patience though. It's the Steven Wilson effect.
Yeah Patience is another great one. And the video is fantastic.
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Everyone else is commenting on the actual albums and I'm just being so annoying and hectoring Parama about random things :P
Yeah shame on you, you're not even paying attention to what could be your new love in music, check out Patience by Skyharbor right now! I think you'll like it. Preferably the official video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIoDRnoalrg) since it has one of those lovely video's by the same person who does the Steven Wilson animated video's.
Guiding Lights is just fantastic, my favorite song is easily Patience though. It's the Steven Wilson effect.
Yeah Patience is another great one. And the video is fantastic.
Love it.
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I can only immediately pull to mind the chorus of patience tbh
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Every section of that song is beautiful.
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#23: Baroness - Red Album
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/815AgdD1SsL._SL1500_.jpg)
Exploring both ends of the Baroness spectrum, with the more accessible and toned-down Yellow & Green, and the heavier, jagged Red, as well as the recent comfortable middle between the two, Purple, has given me a lot of appreciation for this band. There's a core underlying sound they have, but they're also competent enough songwriters to take it in a different direction with every release and still have tons of variety on each record.
Red, which is their first full-length, is certainly the heaviest Baroness album I have, though I wouldn't say it's really especially heavy, and it's also, interestingly, the least vocal-driven. Four of the tracks here are completely instrumental, and most of the rest have a strong instrumental focus with occasional bits of hard-edged vocals from Baizley. I definitely think this works in the album's favor as while the vocals tend to be nicely intense when they come in, they're not the greatest; having them in small moments to accentuate the heavier parts of the tracks makes them work about as good as they could.
There's a certain southern rock twang to the guitar lines that permeates pretty much the entire album; Cockroach en Fleur in particular is a weird mixture of classical guitar and a very twangy guitar line that creates quite a captivating mix. A good chunk of the rest of the guitar lines on the album have a similar though not as strong vibe to them, but it's one thing that really gives this album a lot of its unique flavor.
The other most notable thing about this album is the drumming. 'Cause... damn, it's impressive. There's this drum break in The Birthing that's just really intense, and the rest of the track as well has some nice frantic drumming going on throughout. Wailing Wintry Wind is basically a 6-minute showcase of the drumming, set to the tune of an escalating build; the drums take this downbeat atmospheric track and transform it into an intense, energetic thrill ride, without destroying the more relaxed mood of the rest of the instruments. Teeth of a Cogwheel also has pretty intense drumming throughout, especially a bit that sounds almost like something you'd hear in an industrial track, clanking of metal and thumping toms. Really though the drums are the other half of what really works about this album.
I do think that the high guitar and drums presence does sideline the bass pretty heavily, though; the bass has its moments, sure, but they're far and few between and generally not especially notable.
The small amount of progressive flair that this album does have is utilized pretty well; The Birthing builds on a 5/4 riff that has a sort of rambling mood to it, it never feels like the song is constrained to a strict time signature until about halfway through. Wanderlust has a nice 7/8 instrumental break in the middle which I may like just because 7/8 is the best time signature, but it's a pretty cool groove regardless. There isn't a whole lot of prog on this album in general, only a few moments outside of these two tracks, but it's a small touch that adds to the album a lot.
Another touch that really makes this album work is its roughness. These songs sort of feel like rough drafts, polished juuust enough to be cohesive while still sounding pretty raw. The songs that focus on buildup do so pretty much front-to-back, but in a way that you don't really notice how long the build is because it's interesting every step of the way. All three of the build-focused tracks reach a satisfying and intense climax, too, especially Grad which is just so majestic and triumphant, that horn really makes the ending.
And the rest of the tracks are generally an odd patchwork of three or so main melodies or riffs, with enough small variations to keep anything from getting stale and stitched together just right to have a sense of progression even in their repetition; tracks like The Birthing, Isak, and Wanderlust exemplify this the most, repeating a few main motifs quite a lot with small variations that keep them fresh. And it helps that the motifs repeated tend to be pretty dang good; the only guitar line I don't really care much for is the first main motif of Wanderlust, but it's not bad or anything, just kind of mediocre. It doesn't drag the whole song down too much, though.
The short tracks are the only ones that really break from this formula, not really having the time to do so, but even then they all still have that raw sound to them. Cockroach en Fleur could be a weird guitar jam one of the band members plucked out and put to record on the first take. Teeth of a Cogwheel feels a bit underdeveloped, not going far beyond its one main motif, though there's this weirdly effective guitar solo that could've been basically anything and sound like a first take they just stuck with. O'Appalachia is basically just one of the longer tracks with the instrumental breaks cut out, two or three main motifs and some pretty intense vocals that make for a cohesive and brief track.
Really the only slightly disposable track here is Aleph, which is still notable for having probably the "sludgiest" and most sluggish feel to it, though it mostly just feels incomplete; like there should be a vocal verse or two in the heavier parts, and as well the ending is a bit... abrupt and awkward. There's also that untitled bonus track which is a brief jam after 10 minutes of silence that I've listened to probably once ever and am not factoring into this review, so.
On the whole, this is a strong and rather colorful album; I wouldn't particularly say there are any "standout" tracks here, and barely any weak spots, even the weakest track here is still quite solid, it's just a consistently high bar that gets met by the majority of the music here. Each song has its own unique feel to it as well which is what gives the album its wide palette despite its rather short runtime, there's really no wasted space here at all. The album even has quite a strong flow to it, both in the way the tracks segue into each other and the different moods each conveys. It's an album where I can't go far beyond nitpicking to point out any flaws, but one I'm never especially thrilled by either, just really solid and consistently enjoyable.
Favorite Tracks: Rays on Pinion, Grad, The Birthing, Isak, Teeth of a Cogwheel
Least Favorite Track: Aleph
8/10
DTF Addendum: I think what this album lacks that later Baroness albums have in spades is emotional potency. The music here is pretty great but it's not as... powerful, as anything off Yellow or Green, or even Purple. I'm not familiar enough with Blue yet to know where it stands on the spectrum but I have a feeling it's about halfway between Red and Yellow, or at least that's what everyone makes it sound like. Not that this makes Red a worse album or anything, clearly. First 8 of the list, yo.
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I kinda like Blue but haven't bothered to try another of their albums.
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#22: Thank You Scientist - The Perils of Time Travel
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3114375285_16.jpg)
If you'd listened to this EP a few times before the band dropped their first album, you probably wouldn't be surprised at how good that album was, because while this EP isn't quite on the same level, it's still pretty dang fantastic. It's got the same sensibilities, just less refined, and with songwriting that's a bit sloppier and unfocused at moments but showing a ton of potential.
One thing that this EP does really well is breadth. There's a lot of tiny subtleties throughout, a lot of moments where there's so much going on that it can be hard to follow, but everything that's going on its just awesome. Grin has a lot of these subtleties buried in its mix, and Make Like a Tree (Get Out) is probably the most lush song overall, even incorporating some xylophone at moments; the proggy breakdown during its instrumental has just so much going on it's crazy, but it sounds really cool because of it.
The EP also has its fair share of strong choruses. Abandonship! especially, has possibly their best chorus, that vocal line is so catchy and the instrumentation matches both the bigger moments and the more frantic moments of the vocals perfectly; especially the third chorus which has a cutoff at the start and even more layers of vocals, it's glorious. Leave the Light On is a close second, though, switching between a straightforward mood and groove driven by guitar and violin melodies. Grin and Make Like a Tree both have pretty solid choruses too, though the instrumentation in both of these overshadows the vocals, and Gemini doesn't really feel like it has a chorus, just a long prechorus with a ton of cool moments that satisfies on its own.
There's a number of cool vocal moments outside of the choruses, though. The vocals on the very jazzy verses of Leave the Light On are quite nice, the verses on Make Like a Tree outshine the chorus, and Gemini has both great verses and this absolutely fantastic staccato vocal moment about 3:15 in. The vocals are generally accompanied by really great music throughout, though, especially the aforementioned staccato moment in Gemini, everything together just makes that section HUGE.
Every instrument here has its time to shine, and there's a lot of them, clearly. Guitar and violin are probably the two most prevalent, driving a lot of the riffs and melodies respectively. There's a few great guitar solos too, on Leave the Light on and Gemini, the former especially builds into the song's last chorus really well. The drums never really take center stage but are often driving the mood of the song quite well. The bass has a number of cool lines of its own, especially the break in Abandonship! which has a ton of groove to it. The saxophone has solos in Abandonship! and Gemini the latter working as a great cooldown moment, and while beyond that neither it nor the trumpet takes center stage much, they're both plenty present throughout. There's also a bit of synth in Leave the Light On and Gemini, a solo in the latter, something you don't hear on the follow-up album, a bit of a unique touch.
Really though, the EP is at its best when all the instruments are working together to create a cool musical moment. Leave the Light On has a ton of instrumental cooperation, everything coming together to drive one hell of a groove, and Gemini's build in its first half is done so well because of the instrumentation. There's also a number of other moments, like the riff/melody in the second verse of Make Like a Tree that's jagged and addictive, the frantic intro of Grin, the opening unison of Gemini... too many to list really, just a ton of small little moments that work well.
I honestly feel like I might not have listened to this one enough, since even on this last listen I spotted a lot of little subtleties that I'd never noticed before and just made me appreciate this little EP all the more; it's not up to the level of the album that followed it, but it's still damn good on its own, only the opener track is a little weak by the band's standards, the Abandonship! and Leave the Light On could easily go one-on-one with most tracks on Maps. It's accessible, technically pleasing, and tons of fun, and between this and their debut album I can't wait for their next release.
Favorite Tracks: Leave the Light On, Abandonship!
Least Favorite Track: Grin
8/10
DTF Addendum: I'm just super happy to be able to get a physical copy of this EP, also having this band's shirt and fanboying and etc. Honestly I feel like I may have underrated this a little, it's not as good as the album for sure but it's still pretty great.
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I heard like one song from their album and it wasn't what I expected at all. But it is on my to-check list and I will check them sometimes.
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Haven't heard either but felt obligated to at least comment since you're a pretty cool guy so... ;)
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#21: Ne Obliviscaris - Portal of I
(https://www.metalinjection.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Ne-Obliviscaris-Portal-Of-I-LARGE.jpg)
I think what I like most about this album is the potential on display here. I can easily tell that these guys are capable of making a truly great album. But I don't think they quite nailed it here. That being said - this is still a great album.
More than anything, it suffers from, surprise, being too long. There's some 10-15 minutes here that could easily be stripped back for a more concise and consistent album. Some of Tapestry of the Starless Abstract, some bits of Xenoflux, probably a bit of Of the Leper Butterflies, a few of the dozens of passages in And Plague Flowers, probably a decent chunk of Of Petrichor, all could be tightened and refined down to their best moments and all would come out stronger for it. That being said, none of the songs is even close to entirely disposable, every track here has a decent number of killer moments.
The star of the show here isn't hard to point out; it's the violin. Of course it's the violin. Pretty much the biggest aspect of every song on the album, and easily the most interesting. There's a ton of ghostly, wailing leads throughout the more intense parts of the tracks, and there's a nice number of beautiful solos during the quieter moments. This comes to a climax in Forget Not, which is just dominated by the violin, and is easily the best song on the album, or even the band's discography, one of the best songs I heard last year for certain. Probably my second favorite violin moment is the solo at the end of Of the Leper Butterflies, really climactic ending to the song. There's even a few moments of pizzicato violin playing that are pretty neat too; again, the intro of Of the Leper Butterflies has a great moment of this.
The other thing I really love about their sound is how they mix clean vocals and harsh vocals together to create a more intense sound than either would be able to achieve on their own. Forget Not, again, has the best usage of this, with the harsh vocals doubling the cleans quite a bit, and both stealing the show near the end of the track, the last minute gives me chills. Tapestry of the Starless Abstract also has a cool vocal moment like this near its end, and there's moments scattered throughout the album. It helps that both the cleans and harsh vocals are pretty good just by themselves, too.
Personally, I think this album hits its best moments the more straightforward it is. The songs I like the least are the most disjointed ones; Tapestry with is sudden break in the middle, And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope, which goes through a ton of ideas in a short amount of time without really having any sense of direction, and of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise, which has a clean intro and long outro that the heavier main bulk of the song awkwardly transitions into and out of. Xenoflux is the middle ground here, two halves of the song that are pretty different but there's a solid transition between the two. And the remaining three are all much more straightforward, constant-time and steady tracks, but all the better for it.
The rest of the band certainly doesn't slack off; there's a fair number of cool guitar riffs throughout. The riff that comes in at 2:50 of Xenoflux is quite sinister, the first heavy riff of Forget Not is fantastic, as is the riff under the all-growls section, a groovy riff in the middle of And Plague Flowers, the first heavy riff of As Icicles Fall is awesome, and there's a riff at 4:40 in Of Petrichor that's also pretty great. On top of that, there's a ton of lovely quieter moments; The break of Tapestry is gorgeous and driven by a classical guitar sound, the clean melody that drives the second half of Xenoflux is nice, the clean guitar lines in the first half of Forget Not are great, the salsa vibe at the start of And Plague Flowers is driven primarily by a great guitar line, and the somber guitar line that bookends Of Petrichor is nice too. There's, on top of that, a decent number of solid guitar solos, nothing mindblowing but still pretty good. Of the Leper Butterflies, Forget Not, and As Icicles Fall probably have the best of these solos.
The bass on this album definitely pulls its weight, too; it's mixed to be audible enough and tends to do a lot more than just double the guitar, though there aren't a huge amount of moments where it can really shine. The basslines in the softer parts of the album especially tend to be great; the first quiet break of Tapestry, the first quarter of Of the Leper Butterflies, the first half of Forget Not and a solo later on, and another solo at 8:15 in And Plague Flowers. But really throughout the bass is great. The only instrument here that I feel is a bit underutilized is the drums, which doesn't really have any moments to shine and is doing pretty standard double-bass or blastbeat stuff throughout most of the heavier moments, though there are some quiet spots with decent drum work.
Really, at the end of the day, this is a pretty easy album to sit through despite its length, heaviness, and complexities. I quite like it a lot. There are a bit too many moments that don't really stand out much and a few too many songwriting gripes for me to give it highest recommendations, but on the whole it's still a great metal album with a really strong selling point in its violin work. I just kind of wish they'd focus a bit less on the metal and a bit more on the melodic parts, since on the whole the quieter moments of this album are the better moments. But yeah, regardless, definitely an album worth checking out.
Favorite Tracks: Forget Not, As Icicles Fall, Of the Leper Butterflies
Least Favorite Track: Of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise
8/10
DTF Addendum: Oh hey it that one album with Forget Not and the other ones on it. But no I dig this album a fair bit, just never found it to be "mindblowing" or "the best debut album ever" or anything along those lines.
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I agree with most of what you say. I like Ne Obliviscaris, both their albums are great (7.5 or maybe 8/10) but they're still playing in a league below the best metal bands. If the A-league is bands like Opeth and Agalloch, Ne Obliviscaris plays in the B-league.
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as someone who's never been a huge fan of Opeth (Ghost Reveries is fantastic and there are scattered songs on other albums I dig but generally never been huge on them) and someone who hasn't been a huge fan of Agalloch thus far (The Mantle is good but gets old kinda quick, Ashes is also good but not really mindblowing either) I'd say they're all about on par :corn
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Just dropping by to say that the thread title is :lolpalm: in a cringeworthy way.
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as someone who's never been a huge fan of Opeth (Ghost Reveries is fantastic and there are scattered songs on other albums I dig but generally never been huge on them) and someone who hasn't been a huge fan of Agalloch thus far (The Mantle is good but gets old kinda quick, Ashes is also good but not really mindblowing either) I'd say they're all about on par :corn
Is there any good metal you like?!
j/k :lol
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@evermind that's the idea
@zantera yes, and it's in the top 20
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Parama only likes weird metal :P
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basicslly, this is why thy catafalque has been my recent obsession
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Yeah you seem to have been getting deep into avant-garde black metal and similar as of late. A friend of mine is quite into that stuff but way more obsessed - I could recommend you some of his favorite albums :P
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please pm me
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#20: Baroness - Green
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91NtheKW63L._SL1400_.jpg)
Yellow as an album is generally pretty straightforward, and carries the same melancholy mood pretty much all the way through, letting the songs stand out on the basis of songwriting alone. Green, on the other hand, is all over the place mood-wise, with the bright tracks (Green Theme, Board Up the House, If I Forget Thee, Lowcountry), the melancholy tracks (Mtns., Stretchmarker, The Line Between), and the outright dark ones (Foolsong, Collapse).
The variety of moods gives the album a lot of emotional potency, as a result; Foolsong is downright chilling, especially its vocal-only outro, and If I Forget Thee, Lowcountry is beautiful in the simplest of ways. Mtns. is quite good at instilling its melancholy mood, with a bit of a brighter resolution to it, and Collapse is really good at keeping you on edge without ever needing to break that tension with a resolution. And The Line Between is just pure intensity, save for its ominous intro.
As well, each track save for The Line Between has its own really unique flavor to it. There's the pure triumph of Green Theme, the bright, catchy Board Up the House, the clash of melancholic melodies and electronic groove on Mtns., the absolute bleakness of Foolsong, the tension and uneasiness of Collapse, the awkwardness of Psalms Alive (which is not really a positive trait, but...), the weightlessness of Stretchmarker (in a good way, mind you), and the nostalgia of If I Forget Thee, Lowcountry. The power of each track here is heightened by their standalone nature.
Even as individual songs, they all work well, but the album order is pretty interesting too. Emotionally, the front and back of the album are the brightest, with Mtns. and Stretchmarker being the most melancholy, and the two darkest tracks right in the middle. Psalms Alive is a bit of a weird case, since I really can't get a read on its mood at all.
Speaking of Psalms Alive. If I don't get this out of the way here, I'll just end up taking shots at it all review long. The first half of this track is pretty bad. None of the music elements work well on their own, and none of them feel like they belong together either. On top of that, for as emotionally charged as this album is, there's just no emotive presence on this track. The heavier parts of the track are totally fine, though, there's a lot of power behind them, it's really only about half the track here that I don't care for, about 2 minutes on the entire disc I dislike. The only minor gripe I have with this album outside of that is the rather anticlimactic ending of Collapse, but that's really just a nitpick, and it fits the song well.
As on Yellow, there's a strong focus on powerful choruses here, and they're more effective than ever. The Line Between's chorus, and mood in general, is just really intense and powerful, easily Baizley's shining moment on this album. But the chorus of Mtns. is a close second, probably the catchiest chorus on either Yellow or Green, and really gorgeous on top of that. Board Up the House and Collapse have pretty solid choruses too, the former's is quite catchy.
Instrumentally, there's a lot more twists and unique flavors to these tracks. The bass again has a lot of moments to shine; the main line of Board Up the House, the reluctant groove of Collapse, and the driving rhythm of The Line Between come to mind especially. But every instrument gets its time to shine here; there's a lot of great guitar lines, the leads in Green Theme, the vaguely proggy groove near the end of Board Up the House, the brighter last minute of Mtns., the sinister main melody of Foolsong, the spacey and somber atmosphere of Collapse, the guitar interplay on Stretchmarker and If I Forget Thee, Lowcountry, and a the mix of more metal and psychedelic vibes on The Line Between, as well as another great guitar lead. The drums, as well, get plenty of moments; again in the proggy groove of Board Up the House, Mtns. with a strong groove driven primarily by drums, and some pretty intense moments in the heavier parts of Psalms Alive and The Line Between.
Really, a lot of these songs speak for themselves better than I could ever speak for them. With Yellow, Baroness proved they could lighten their sound without sacrificing anything, and with Green, they prove that not only are they not sacrificing anything, but they've actually been able to expand their sound even further by stripping it down just a bit. It's even more effective than Yellow was at showing the band can write great songs regardless of the genre and I'm glad they had the guts to go down this route.
Favorite Tracks: The Line Between, If I Forget Thee, Lowcountry, Mtns. (The Crown & Anchor), Foolsong, Green Theme, Stretchmaker
Least Favorite Track: Psalms Alive
8.25/10
DTF Addendum: Whoops I forgot to add one of these earlier. Yeah all the Baroness albums are pretty clustered together aren't they, but that's probably 'cause the band is both really consistent and not really ever "amazing", just "pretty good". The best songs on this album are fantastic though, really.
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:corn
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i'm not going to post this rule when i start my next roulette, but consider it official:
every use of :corn in thread results in a one-point loss
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Is that valid on this thread or on your future roulette one? :P
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yes
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Something tells me you're a programmer *popcorn gif*
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yes, i am.
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#19: Rosetta - The Galilean Satellites
(https://images.cryhavok.org/d/15807-1/Rosetta+-+The+Galilean+Satellites.jpg)
I think I got this album at just the right time to really get into it, but I probably would've gotten into it regardless as it's just a damn good post-metal album, one of the best I've heard easily. Never mind that it comes bundled with a pretty solid ambient/drone disc and that the two discs can be combined to make the first disc just sound even more atmospheric and dense.
Which is a pretty cool idea, really, the two discs are vastly different enough that they don't clash and there are some moments where they play off each other pretty nicely. I will say that the difference isn't massive or anything, it's primarily the first disc with the second only taking the forefront at a few select moments while mostly staying in the background, but it's pretty much unnecessary to ever listen to the first disc normally when you can just listen to them both at once.
The ambient disc, though, there's definitely some merit to listening on its own. It's the kind of album that you'd probably have to be in the right mood to really get, and it's far from perfect, as well; I definitely wouldn't have tracked any of the vocals to this disc like they do in Beta Aquilae and parts of the last two tracks, they sort of feel out of place here, but ehh. It's not just a pure, soothing album at its core anyways; there's a lot of distorted noise going on throughout the tracks that creates an unsettling vibe, but I think it works, it'd be a bit dull if it was just constantly pleasant.
Onto the meat of the album, though. This album is pretty dang intense. The way the songs flow and explode can be pretty damn captivating, especially. Départe opts for a more laidback feel, driven by a hypnotic bassline that plays throughout the entire track, exploding at a few moments throughout the song into a pretty heavy but lumbering atmosphere. Europa is vaguely progressive in nature, starting out with a locked 7/8 groove driven by the drums and guitar, calming down at around 4 minutes only to build up into an even more intense mood, dropping out again at 6:40 for a quieter break driven by a frantic drum line that builds up into an even more intense climax, the song speeding up and getting overwhelmingly heavy by the time it ends. Absent starts off quiet and uneasy, exploding into a really driving riff, the drumming staying pretty crazy the whole way through, even when the song quiets down just to build up towards its middle, calming down again just for another massive, absolutely visceral buildup peaking in a massive accelerando with crushing guitars and manic drums. Itinérant is the only real break from the intensity of the album, the first few minutes being really dreamy and melodic, a brief moment of heaviness before switching to a long, hypnotic build, reaching its peak intensity about halfway through the track, and at around 10 minutes fading out for a long, droning, noisy outro. Au Pays Natal starts out with a laidback groove, getting heavy for a bit and breaking in the middle, with the last 5 minutes being a sluggish wall of noise that peaks in some really frantic drumming and increasingly strained vocals by the end, maybe the least "unique" of the songs here but it's still pretty effective.
The vocals on the album are... pretty standard post-metal, really, no cleans at all, just the low growling you'd expect to hear on a post-metal album, and that's fine, they're used well enough here. The bass gets most of its work done in the first track with that locked groove, but there are other moments where it shines through, a bass lead in the first break of Europa, the bass providing the grounding for the gorgeous first few minutes of Itinérant, the straight groove of the intro of Au Pays Natal. It's definitely plenty present throughout, as well, even if it's rarely given the spotlight.
The guitar work on the album is pretty diverse, ranging from some nice cleaner moments during pretty much any quieter stretch of the album, though especially the intros of Absent and Itinérant, some solid riffing throughout, most notably the 7/8 groove of Europa, the chugging of Absent, and the first heavier riff of Au Pays Natal. There's a lot of dense, wall-of-sound moments too; pretty much every track has one, though the last 5 minutes of Au Pays Natal are probably the most drawn-out example of this, and there's a lot of lighter atmospheric moments; especially the long build in the middle of Itinérant. There's also some nice guitar leads in the middle of Absent, a bit of a strange moment for the album but one that ends up working pretty well.
As far as the drumming, well, there's a lot to like. The crazy and visceral speed ups at the end of Europa, Absent, and Au Pays Natal especially, of course, though the vast majority of Absent has pretty frantic drumming, even in its quieter moments. There's a good bit of intense drum work throughout though, the 7/8 groove and second quieter break of Europa both have a lot going on, and the long build in the middle of Itinérant has constantly escalating drums. There's also a good number of moments of more laidback grooves; the quieter moments of Départe, the intro of Absent, the line that comes in near the end of Itinérant and carries over into the first few minutes of Au Pays Natal. I think the drums are my favorite instrument here overall, they pull a lot of weight and drive the mood the most out of everything.
I'd be remiss not to mention some of the keyboard work and other miscellaneous things. Of course, there's the gorgeous piano and strings in the intro of Itinérant, such a weird and kind of out-of-place moment for the album that works so well. There's also the soundscapes at the end of the song that get pretty unsettling, really. The synths have a minor presence throughout the rest of the first disc, but they pretty well dominate the second disc, obviously. There's a lot of warmer sounds on Deneb and Sol especially, and the last few minutes of Ross 128 have a nice soothing sound as well, but there's just as many if not more weird distorted effects that really help create the atmosphere of the disc.
Odds are I'll probably keep spinning the combined disc over either disc separately, maybe play around with the volume of each of the two discs as I'm not quite satisfied with how it is now; by default it feels like the second disc ends up being crushed by the first quite a lot, especially Absent / Beta Aquilae, where the vocals barely come through the way I have them mixed. That's the cool thing, you can mix these however you want to create the experience that appeals to you the most. The whole "combine two songs/albums to make one super-album" thing isn't a unique concept or anything but I doubt anyone else has done it this well because of how different the discs are.
It's just a damn solid album overall, though; probably as intense as I'd ever want my post-metal to be, not overwhelmingly heavy all the time but with enough pretty crushing moments mixed with enough more laidback breaks and a good sense of buildup to keep things from ever getting boring. And of course the atmosphere is great, especially on the combined disc. I don't really think this sounds like the contemporaries of post-metal, either; this is way more intense than any of Isis, Neurosis, Cult of Luna, Pelican, whoever else; sure, they all get pretty heavy and crushing but I don't think any of them have ever come close to something like the ending of Absent, for example. Definitely worth checking out for fans of the genre, though, and really, worth checking out for any fan of metal in general.
Favorite Tracks: Absent, Europa, Départe, Itinérant
Least Favorite Track: Beta Aquilae
8.25/10
DTF Addendum: I think I'd like this album a lot more if the last track wasn't a fairly meh way to end the album, sure it's alright enough but after the intensity of the first three tracks and the atmosphere of the previous it just... has nowhere left to go. That being said it's still great, totally worth checking out. Panopticon is still my favorite post-metal release but I'd probably but this at #2, for now.
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yes, i am.
Parama's life slowly unfolds to those who follow him closely.
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Yes, that album is awesome. About Baroness, I think I prefer Yellow to Green but both are good.
BTW, what programming language you work in? :D
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He's developing one of his own, called Paramacore++ :P
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Yes, that album is awesome. About Baroness, I think I prefer Yellow to Green but both are good.
BTW, what programming language you work in? :D
Psalms Alive is the weakest song between the two discs but the best tracks on green crush the best ones on yellow imo
also, java mostly
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#18: múm - Finally We Are No One
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2379305488_10.jpg)
The comparisons to Sigur Rós are almost inevitable, but really I think that ends at them both being Icelandic bands that create low-key music. múm certainly do have a lot of nice soundscapes in their music, but there's no traces of post-rock anywhere; very little guitar and bass, and I'm pretty sure all the drums are electronic, but on top of that there's no bombastic builds or climaxes here; just subtle, pleasant, relaxing and soothing music.
There's a lot of different elements that go into creating the soundscapes and textures on this album. Just from what I can pick out, there's a lot of synths a good bit of piano and electronic percussion, a few moments of guitar and bass, a fair bit of strings, some accordion, a bit of brass, some xylophone, and the high, breathy vocals of the band's singer. Though, a good chunk of this is instrumental; only four of the 11 tracks have vocals and they're not especially prominent even in the tracks that do have them, which is probably for the better; their singer is no Jónsi, his voice isn't as pretty and the breathy sound isn't that appealing, but it does match the mood of the music well.
And what is the mood of the music? Well, it varies. The first five tracks of the album are pretty bright and playful, especially tracks 4 and 5 which are outright bouncy and cute in an endearing way. It's the kind of music you can't help but be happy listening to. K/Half Noise takes a more melancholic mood that carries over into the somber now There's That Fear Again, Faraway Swimmingpool briefly returning to the cuteness of the early parts of the album. Tracks 9 and 10 are generally bright with traces of melancholy, and the closer is a lot more somber and downbeat. The consistent thread, though, is that the music is just gorgeous. There's really no denying that. Even in its sadder moments it's still very pretty and it's far from bleak.
Tracks like K/Half Noise and The Land Between Solar Systems are the kind of long, drawn out tracks I really like to get lost in, but the majority of the album is tracks in the 5-6 range that come and go a lot quicker but leave just as much of an impact. Green Grass of Tunnel feels really iconic, Don't Be Afraid is really catchy and memorable, and I Can't Feel My Hand Any More is probably the most gorgeous and textured track of the entire bunch. I can't really say any two tracks sound that much alike, even with the cohesive sound running throughout the album.
It's more about the flow of the album than anything, turning the album on and getting lost in a dreamworld for 56 minutes. In fact, I've listened to this album while sleeping quite a number of times, to the point where the first few tracks are ingrained in my memory and the rest are still quite familiar. But I can still appreciate the music fully conscious as well; it's just gorgeous enough to work effectively for either scenario.
There's really not much more to say, I could describe the album in detail but I don't think there's a point to doing so, it's the kind of music you'd really have to listen to and judge for yourself. It's definitely outside of my comfort zone, but I find myself enjoying it every time I listen to it and always coming away from it in a better mood than I started. Even the first time I listened to it, I was pretty impressed by just how pleasant it is. It's hard to fault it for anything, really, since the band clearly knows what they want to do and they do it well. Maybe a few of the tracks feel a bit too stretched out or unnecessary, but honestly I wouldn't change a single second of the album given the chance.
Favorite Tracks: I Can't Feel My Hand Any More, It's Alright, Sleep Still, K/Half Noise, Now There's That Fear Again, Green Grass of Tunnel, The Land Between Solar Systems, We Have a Map of the Piano
Least Favorite Tracks: Finally We Are No One
8.25/10
DTF Addendum: Gonna be honest, this album feel so disconnected from this list that I could've put it 10 places higher or 10 places lower and been happy with its placement. It's really hard to even judge an album like this, but it's definitely quite good, I know that for sure.
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Yes, that album is awesome. About Baroness, I think I prefer Yellow to Green but both are good.
BTW, what programming language you work in? :D
Psalms Alive is the weakest song between the two discs but the best tracks on green crush the best ones on yellow imo
also, java mostly
I'll spin them both today or tomorrow, it's been a while.
Java master race :D but as I'm learning Python I'm seeing how inconvenient Java can be :/
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python is pretty rad but i haven't used it in a while
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python is pretty rad but i haven't used it in a while
I'm just starting with it on Scripting Languages class and I already like it. Sorry for off-topic but I can't comment on múm :P
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I really want to learn Phyton but as next year I'll change of careers, I don't know if they'll use another language.
I loved the múm song the ninja sent in my roulette, will definitely check this album sometime soon :P
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This is an amazing album. Also I'm like 90% sure the singer is a woman.
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tbh I have no clue so :lol
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This thread is starting to get really good now IMO. especially with Ne Obliviscaris, Thank You, Scientist and ALL THE BARONESS!! expecting The Blue Record to show up real soon as it seems as though you explored their whole back catalogue last year, good call :hat
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actually I just got blue record last month, all the baroness for 2015 is gone now sorry
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actually I just got blue record last month, all the baroness for 2015 is gone now sorry
It's funny, I went completely in reverse. I got the Blue Record about 6 years ago then only actually went through the rest of their back catalogue over the last year and a half. Yellow/Green is easily my favourite with Blue probably 2nd
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When we're at Baroness, I think Purple is actually my favorite. Few years ago when I heard Yellow & Green I didn't try too hard to get into first two because I wasn't fan of genre (and Y&G are different). I'd probably like them more now I love that sludgy sound.
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#17: Obsidian Kingdom - Mantiis
(https://obsidiankingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/cover1440x1440.jpg)
Here we have the hardest kind of album to review. Ooh boy. See, while this album is 14 tracks, they all flow together as one long suite and you could make a solid case for it being one long song. And just like any long song, it has its highs and its lows... but they're sparse here. There's a select few weaker moments and a few really shining moments, but at least 90% of this album is just riding along at a high standard to begin with, which leaves little room for towering highs to overshadow the rest.
One thing this album has really got down is its flow; obviously, since it's one long suite/song, but it's the rare case where an album designed like this can really hold the claim to it. The first four tracks are a constant buildup, starting with the empty and somber Not Yet Five and reaching an intense peak by Cinnamon Balls. The next three tracks follow a similar pattern, starting soft with The Nurse and building up to the intensity of Last of the Light. The album breaks from this pattern for its next stretch, with Genteel to Mention being another quieter track, the following two tracks toeing with heaviness but balancing it out with lighter stuff too, until the unrelenting assault of Endless Wall comes in. The next two tracks are both pretty weird, Fingers in Anguish being a quiet track sitting between two of the most intense on the album, and Ball-Room is far more upbeat than the rest of the album, while pretty consistently heavy. And Then it Was brings things to an end pretty satisfyingly, a more crushing climax that fades into droning ambience.
The album's sound is also really consistent throughout, which is probably what gives it its claim to cohesion; Haunts of the Underworld in particular is practically the embodiment of the album's sound, having a lot of melancholic atmosphere, a strong bass groove behind the track, and some crushing heavy moments, the only thing it's really missing is the spacey keyboards prevalent throughout a lot of the album. They do quite a lot with the sound though, some tracks fit pretty comfortably into it but just as many do their own thing without feeling too out of place. There's the unsettling atmosphere of Not Yet Five, the calming synths of The Nurse, the jazzy middle of Last of the Light, the ethereal genteel to Mention, the crushing Endless Wall, the bleak and depressing Fingers in Anguish, and the mockingly playful Ball-Room.
It's really hard to classify this as any specific genre, too. Progressive metal? Maybe a little, but it does't have a lot of "prog" tendencies. Black metal? Honestly, I'm not really sure any of this quite qualifies. Death metal? Yeah, to some degree, but not nearly as intense. Post-rock? Maybe in a few places, but it's not that prevalent. The Avant-Garde metal tag is the only one that really feels like it could apply here, but it's also really not -that- weird. It's a very self-contained sound that they're free to do a lot with while not really sounding like any other band or album out there.
The range of vocals on this album is pretty solid, too; two different clean vocalists as far as I can tell and presumably one or both of them handling the harsh vocals as well. The harsh vocals are, as they usually are for me, pretty much just "there"; don't mind them, but they don't add a lot for me, though they do accentuate a number of really intense moments on the album quite well. The clean vocals do a lot, too; there's the restrained build of Oncoming Dark, some layers of ethereal vocals on Answers Revealing and Genteel to Mention, the tired and weak-sounding vocals at the end of Awake Until Dawn, the broken-sounding Fingers in Anguish, and the rough-edged climax of And Then it Was. A good chunk of the album is instrumental but there's plenty of vocal presence regardless.
The keyboards on this album tend to add a lot of atmosphere, as well. There's the droning noise of Not Yet Five, a spacey xylophone-esque sound on Oncoming Dark and Through the Glass, the warm sounds of The Nurse, some more spacey atmosphere near the end of Answers Revealing, an unsettling siren-like synth buried under the heavier moments of Last of the Light, the somber piano of Genteel to Mention, a choir-esque wall of synths in Genteel to Mention, Haunts of the Underworld, and Ball-Room, the really electronic synths at the end of Awake Until Dawn, subtle piano in Haunts of the Underworld, the subtle unsettling synths of Endless Wall and And Then it Was, and the constant drone of Fingers in Anguish. Really every track has some degree of keyboard presence, some more than others, but it's generally used as an atmospheric device and works quite well as one.
Really, a good chunk of this album is about atmosphere. The grooves are atmospheric, the riffs are atmospheric, the softer moments are atmospheric. There's only a few solos throughout; some shreddier guitar on Cinnamon Balls and Haunts of the Underworld, jazzy guitar and trumpet solos on Last of the Light, both quite gorgeous, and the wah-drenched guitar solo of And Then it Was.
Beyond that, this is not a very show-offy album, but all the instrumentation instead works together to create a lot of solid moments. Through the Glass is basically 2 and a half minutes of guitar riffing that's just diverse enough to stay interesting throughout, and the drums do a lot to support the guitar. The more intense moments of Cinnamon Balls and Last of the Light wouldn't work nearly as well if the drums and guitar weren't competing for intensity with the vocals as a third contender. The sinister groove of Ball-Room is a group effort between the bass, guitar, and especially drums, and the harsh vocals even have a mocking tone to them to match. Fingers in Anguish would be much less effective if the bass wasn't backed up by some subtle guitars and crash cymbal rolls adding to the droning atmosphere. And the soundscapes of The Nurse, Answers Revealing, and Genteel to Mention are all just very lush and gorgeous, and every instrument as well as the vocals are adding their own layers to the atmospheres here. This album basically sounds like a band who knows exactly what they're doing and they're doing it well.
The lyrics are supposedly really dark and screwed up, though I haven't really looked too deeply into the meaning of them. The music fits that mood though, there's not really any bright spot on this album, the "brightest" moments all have undertones of melancholy, and the darkest moments are bleak and hopeless, sometimes crushing.
It's really hard to point out any faults in this album. I don't consider a lack of high points a fault when the album's going to be as consistent as it is. I guess, the crushing sludginess of Endless Wall may drag on for a bit too long, but really only in comparison to how fast the rest of the album moves. The only really compelling solos are on Last of the Light, but the other solos are still plenty solid and don't go on too long. I'm having trouble coming up with more nitpicks, and each one I've come up with has a pretty basic counterargument for it.
It's just a really solid album and a really unique one. There's... not a lot else to say. If you like metal in general and can handle a fair bit of darkness, definitely check it out.
Favorite Tracks: Last of the Light, Haunts of the Underworld, Ball-Room, Through the Glass, Cinnamon Balls
Least Favorite Track: Endless Wall
8.5/10
DTF Addendum: In the top 20 alone there are 8 different artists that were sent in my roulette, this being the second of them. Of those 8, half of them were artists I didn't know about before my roulette. This makes Obsidian Kingdom the third best thing I didn't know I needed until DTF showed me the way. Shame their new album is kind of mediocre though.
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Agreed, fantastic record :metal
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there are two DMM records in the top 16, how does that make you feel
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Like my participation on your roulette wasn't a total failure :tup
I guess Bilo 3.0 is among the next 3, and ECO is at #9, maybe #10.
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we shall see :corn
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Mantiis is fucking amazing (see my top 50 albums). Glad you liked it this much as well. Nice write-up too :)
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#16: Alcest - Écailles de Lune
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3001297530_10.jpg)
The main word that comes to mind for this album: Gorgeous. A few others: Ethereal, dreamy, lush, soothing. Maybe sometimes also intense or somber. It's a succinct and heavily atmospheric album that knows its sound and knows what it wants to do with it, and thus ends up being quite a joy to listen to.
One strength of the album is its two-sided record feel; the two parts of the title track are longer strings of musical passages creating a flowing, unstructured feel, with the latter half of the album being more straightforward and song-oriented. What this really helps do is showcase the diversity of the sound and keep the album from getting too played out; and as well, each song ends up sounding relatively unique because of it.
This two-sided structure does have some slight flaws, though; Écailles Pt. 2 especially feels a bit incohesive, transitions between its various passages not flowing so great. On the flipside, Solar Song and Sur L'océan Couleur de Fer both end up a bit too straightforward and simple; the former relies on its dreamy but dense atmosphere a bit too heavily, and the latter is a nice counterpoint to the lush sound of the rest of the album, but its emptiness perhaps goes on too long and it doesn't reach its peak as quickly as it feels it should. This isn't really a knock against any of these songs, though, since I still quite enjoy each and every one of them despite their flaws.
The harsh vocals on this album are rare, only appearing on the second and third tracks, and pretty sparsely even then. They're used to varying effects; the really intense early moments of Écailles Pt. 2 work quite well, and the slower, more melodic moments of Écailles Pt. 2 and closer to the end of Percées are pretty solid too. I'm not so sure about the harsh vocals complimenting the upbeat and not especially heavy earlier moments of Percées, though, it just doesn't work for me, though the guitar line their isn't especially strong anyways.
There's also a few little touches throughout the album that I feel deserve some mention. There's this neat at 2:45 of Écailles Pt. 2 with little else besides a folky acoustic line and some screeching guitar fuzz, it's just a really interesting and memorable moment. There's some female vocals added to the lush atmospheres near the end of Écailles Pt. 2 and in the middle of Percées. There's a few moments of sound effects driving atmosphere, too; the oceanic sounds at the start of Écailles Pt. 2 and the unsettling interlude of Abysses.
Beyond that... well, you're going to find a lot of a few different types of sounds. There's some really gorgeous clean or acoustic guitar moments; the practically iconic intro (at least, to me) of Écailles Pt. 1, the oceanic intro and long, utterly breathtaking outro of Écailles Pt. 2, a brief moment in the middle of Percées complimented by thumping drums, a bass-driven break near the end of Solar Song, and the entirety of Sur L'Océan. There's the really lush and gorgeous, more laidback moments that are especially prevalent throughout the album; a good chunk of Écailles Pt. 1, really warm and pleasant stuff, the second harsh vocal passage of Écailles Pt. 2 that still sounds rather pretty in spite of the vocals, the middle strech of Percées with its female vocals, and pretty much the entirety of the very ethereal Solar Song. And there's the moments of black metal intensity; a nice driving moment about 2 minutes into Écailles Pt. 1 as well as its somewhat downtempo blastbeat outro the intense opening passages of Écailles Pt. 2 with some moments of slight groove, and the kind of bouncy and upbeat main line of Percées that unfortunately wears thin pretty quickly, as well as the slower but still driving section near the end. That's the sound of the album, and really, on the whole, it's quite a strong one.
There's really little else to say beyond that. It's definitely balanced a bit more towards the post-rock and shoegaze side of things, but there's still a lot of metal influence here, with a few particularly intense moments, but the goal was clearly to make an album that sounds pretty and dense more than one that sounds crushingly heavy, and in that regards, it's definitely a success. I actually found this album quite nice to sleep to, but it's also a great album to just sit down and have a nice 40 minutes with; even the weakest moments here are far from unpleasant and while there aren't a ton of really standout moments, it's just a solid and enjoyable ride from front to back.
Favorite Tracks: Écailles de Lune, Pt. 1, Écailles de Lune, Pt. 2, Sur L'océan Couleur de Fer
Least Favorite Track: Percées de Lumière
8.5/10
DTF Addendum: Honestly this would be a pretty easy 9/10+ album without Percées, which is kind of just "there" and brings the album down a notch for me. I don't know. I like parts of it but as a whole it's probably my least favorite track between the two Alcest albums I have. Totally worth checking out this album though, it's pretty short too so there's really no excuse. Also this is probably the meanest title thus far in the best way, since The Congregation still hasn't shown up and all :P
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Screw you for that title :lol
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you should go listen to alcest, regardless :corn
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I first heard this album back when it came out, so yeah.
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I love Voyages but this one's also pretty great, sitting at a comfortable 7.75 for me. Percees de Lumiere is probably my favorite :lol that main riff is always the first thing that pops into my mind when I think of Alcest, and I'm very much into that soft/heavy contrast between the vocals and the instruments.
All of the things I heard from this band is very consistent though so there's no real standout song for me.
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Two great albums! My main problem with Alcest is that they haven't had that one amazing album yet. Ecailles De Lune is probably the closest they've gotten, but while it starts off really strong, the second half drops in quality for me. Still, just as a song to song band, they are amazing.
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I liked them few years ago but I never actively listened to them, they were more of a background music for me. Les Voyages is good but I agree with Zantera, they are not too consistent.
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#15: Dordeduh - Dar De Duh
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1047600756_10.jpg)
This album... is a behemoth of an album, pretty obviously. A packed-to-bursting single disc combining a ton of different influences to make a unique but really, really difficult album to get into. Seriously, I still don't feel quite ready to review this one even after some dozen or so spins over the course of 4 months.
Maybe its main problem is that this album isn't very interested in hooks, though there are a few. So it never really sticks in your head, but when you put it on, you tend to notice... that it's really quite good. Great, even. There's a ton of variety on display, a strong balance between the lighter and heavier parts of the album, many interesting uses of the folky elements throughout the album, some subtle reprising and continuity nods, and a really cohesive sound. And then... you forget 75% of it the moment the album ends, but remember it fondly.
At least, that's my experience. The weird part is, I'm not sure there's even a lot of filler here? It feels like too much, but at the same time there's not a lot that feels like it could be cut to make a more succint whole. The album has a really strong flow to it, especially when the songs outright bleed into each other so seamlessly that you barely notice it; for the longest time I thought the start of Cumpăt was the outro of Zuh, and the only way to tell when E-an-na ends and Calea Roţilor de Foc begins is because the former has no metal in it at all, but the transition is otherwise pretty seamless.
And the songs themselves all flow well too. Jind de Tronuri starts out with a slow build, exploding into life a few minutes in before settling into a locked groove for the next few minutes, reaching a more driving middle before returning to the triplet groove and ending with a lot folky outro build. Flăcărarii builds back up and then stays at a pretty satifyingly heavy level throughout, with enough dynamic shifts to not end up monotonous. Ea-an-na is a long, quiet build, starting off rather free-flowing, continually getting denser and faster until it ends by exploding into Calea Roţilor de Foc. The first two minutes of this track are an exercise in outdoing each previous moment's intensity, followed up by a middling heaviness that gradually builds up more intensity before a long softer outro. Pândarul starts off heavy, strips back for a quieter middle that builds back up to an intense outro. Zuh kicks off with another long build, exploding into life about 3 minutes in for a brief moment before returning to another quieter build, back into a heavy build towards an intense climax, dropping out for a quiet break before a final kick of energy to close out the track. Cumpăt alternates between medium softness and crushing heaviness for its first few minutes, staying louder for its middle and ending with a slow death of somber atmosphere. Dojană closes as a driving folk piece that escalates throughout its runtime, closing out on a somber note. There's very few awkward transitions along the entire ride and more than enough smooth ones to make up for it.
Obviously, one of the most notable features on this album is its folk elements, and they're here in spades, they see far more use than on OM and the album's all the better for it. Jind de Tronuri kicks off with xylophone and percussion driving the atmosphere, ominous vocals providing backing. There's a flute that comes in near the middle of the track, as well, and the last 5 minutes are a long build off wooden percussion, folky guitar, off-kilter flute and playful vocals. Pândarul runs the full spectrum of the album's more flavorful elements; some really folky vocal lines, a good helping of flute, and some xylophone accentuating a particularly groovy guitar line. And of course Dojană is nothing but the folk elements of the album. The other songs have scatterings of it too; a lot of flute, a few other moments of ominous or playful vocals, some wooden percussion. The only track really lacking any folky touches at all is Flăcărarii, probably to its deficit.
This is a pretty interesting album in that it's right in that slot between "good atmospheric music" and "good active listening music" in that it has a good helping of both parts spliced together well enough to not really be either at the same time, but also both simultaneously. A lot of the quieter moments lean more towards atmosphere, but there's always a sense of progression, the songs never sit still for too long. The long build of Jind de Tronuri, the entirety of E-an-na, Calea Roţilor de Foc's slow burn during its outro, the escalating groove in the middle of Pândarul, the subtle build at the start of Zuh, the somber deescalation of Cumpăt, all particularly long quiet moments for the album yet all manage to stay interesting throughout. As far as the heavier moments go, you have a lot of moments of crushing intensity; moments throughout Flăcărarii, the manic build at the start of Calea Roţilor de Foc, the crushing outro of Pândarul, the climax of Zuh, the frantic, desperate middle build of Cumpăt; all of which are not lingered on to the point of getting tiresome and often carry through two or three different musical passages as long as they last. Even more than this though, you just have a ton of great riffs; the awesome 70's groove about a quarter into Jind de Tronuri as well as driving riff in its middle, the fuzzy guitar line and great groove in the middle of Flăcărarii, the addictive chorus riff of Pândarul as well as a strong groove near its end, the first heavy groove of Zuh later reprised during its outro. There's a ton of more relaxed heavy atmospheres, too, more than even worth mentioning.
The variety in vocals is also talking about; there's a lot of cleans here, a lot more than on OM, and a good chunk of them are pretty playful in nature, as well as often harmonized. The harsh vocals are still prevalent through a lot of the heavier moments as well, and there's some interesting moments of the clean and harsh vocals playing off each other quite well, either alternating or synchronizing. Another pretty prevalent aspect is the huge walls of synths and synthstrings throughout a good chunk of the album, providing a backing for some of the quieter atmospheric moments and driving the intensity of a lot of the heavier ones over the top. And then even on top of that, you have the bass throughout that gets just a ton of awesome grooves. The bass accompanying the 70's groove section of Jind de Tronuri, a driving groove in the middle of Flăcărarii and a really brief but awesome moment at 4:40, a tense bassline driving the later build of E-an-na, a thick bass backing the outro of Calea Roţilor de Foc, another heavy bassline at the start of Pândarul, a playful line accompanying that awesome groovy riff, and a killer bass groove going throughout the entire middle of the track. Zuh has a solid bassline driving its triplet groove, and Cumpăt a driving bassline closing off the track. And I can't go without mentioning the callback to the alternating 4/4 and 3/4 passages of Calea Roţilor de Foc that happen in Pândarul, such a subtle touch that works so well.
This review has gone on plenty long enough, I feel, but that's because there's both a lot to talk about with this album on top of all the really cool and interesting things it does. There's 78 minutes of music here and at least 70+ feel absolutely essential, great listening. I still have to hold the album's lack of staying power against it a little, but that's about all I can hold against it, since beyond that it's an enjoyable, cohesive, and unique ride that leaves me pleased every time I listen to it.
Favorite Tracks: Jind de Tronuri, Pândarul, Dojană, Zuh, E-an-na
Least Favorite Track: Flăcărarii
8.5/10
DTF Addendum: This is the kind of album where even some 10-15 spins later I feel like I haven't yet given it enough listens. There's just... a lot to find here, the listen I did while reviewing had me noticing some things I didn't before and really enjoying the entire thing while doing so. It's definitely... rather overwhelming at first though, for sure.
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What the fuck is this :lol
I have to listen to his for the title alone
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:corn (don't kill me pls)
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-1 point tomislav
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Durr Dy Durr - Hurr Durr
:2corn:
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tbh it is pretty silly music a lot of the time so it fits
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#14: Ne Obliviscaris - Citadel
(https://www.metalinjection.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ne-Obliviscaris-Citadel.jpg)
If Portal of I is Ne Obliviscaris defining their sound and showing off as many different facets of it as they can, then Citadel is them taking that sound and refining it. i don't think it's any surprise that there's a higher presence of violin on this album given how much it defined their debut, but there just seems to be a greater variety of music here in general, and on top of that the songs seem to move at a faster pace. There's at least twice as much music in Triptych Lux as most of the Portal of I tracks had.
I really like the three shorter tracks on the album, too, serving as a nice intro, midpoint, and closer for the album and flowing into and out of the longer tracks nicely. I'm going to consider this a three-song album for the sake of the review, but I figured I should give these a mention on their own at the very least. Wyrmholes sets the tone of the album pretty swiftly; it's dark and dissonant, kind of unsettling, the violin really wailing away here. Reveries From the Stained Glass Womb is a moment of respite for the album, a long melodic violin solo over some warm guitar. And Contortions is... one of the most terrifying things I've ever heard, the contrast between the unhinged screeching violin and steady, bleak piano... sends chills down my spine every time. It's really something special.
The main meat of the album comes from the three longer tracks that make up the bulk of the three main songs on the album. Once again, there's a balance of clean and harsh vocals throughout, with several moments of both varieties. The harsh vocals are very guttural and rough, playing off the intense music that often backs them; driving guitar chugging, intense drum blastbeats and double bass, driving heavy melodic guitar lines. Even the clean vocals have a number of moments over intense music; the "angels fall" bits of Painters of the Tempest, as well as the crushing climax near the end, and Devour Me, Colossus has a strong heavy guitar groove with some cleans over it in its earlier moments, as well as some climactic cleans over the last heavy moments of the track and album. The moments of harsh and clean interplay are strong, too; there's a few in the first half of Pyrrhic, as well as some of the earlier moments of Devour Me, Colossus. Probably my favorite vocal moments, though, are the cleans during quieter passages of the songs. The middle quiet break of Painters of the Tempest has some lovely vocal melodies, and there's some really gorgeous clean vocals about halfway through Devour Me, Colossus.
Again, the bass on this album is pretty great. It's maybe a bit low in the mix during some of the heavier moments, but plenty audible during the quieter ones. There's very few moments of the bass doubling the guitar, mostly just a lot of strong melodic moments. There's the nice playful bassline during the first clean break of Triptych Lux, the warm bass under the middle break and the gorgeous bass solo that follows, and a really noodly and energetic bassline driving the final build of the track, ending with a somber melodic bassline as it segues into Reveries. There's the subtle, atmospheric bassline during the long middle break of Pyrrhic that grounds the dreamy mood of the section quite well. There's a cool bass groove going on under the guitar grooves of Devour Me, Colossus, a driving bassline around the 5-minute mark keeping the energy through a quieter stretch of the song, evolving as it progresses to a bouncy bass groove when the vocals come back in, and a really melodic bass driving the build at 9 minutes in to the climax of the song. And that's just my personal highlights; plenty more cool moments beyond that.
The drums on this album again seem to not really steal the show much at all; they do well to create an intense mood, driving double bass or frantic blastbeats being two staples, but there doesn't feel like a lot of variety. There's some neat moments of the bass drum mimicking guitar chugging, some jagged rhythms complimenting guitar, and some nice grooves during the quieter moments of the songs, a few moments of thumping, pounding, ominous drums, but even then none of it really stands out as particularly interesting or engaging, though it does compliment the mood well.
The guitar on this album is pretty diverse; during the quieter moments there's a lot of gentle clean guitar melodies or acoustic chords, though a particularly standout moment is the fast atmospheric arpeggios during Reveries From the Stained Glass Womb. There's also a fair few moments of droning guitar fuzz; the ending of Wyrmholes, and especially the escalating wall of noise in the middle of Pyrrhic that abruptly and violently cuts out right when it reaches its peak, really kind of a terrifying moment. There's a few guitar solos, too; a nice melodic one at 10 minutes into Triptych Lux as the song builds back up, and a brief one about 8 and a half minutes into Devour Me, Colossus. More than anything else, though, what this album has in spades are a lot of strong melodic guitar lines, and chugging guitar riffs. Even during some of the most intense moments of the album, the guitar is doing more than chugging away at chords, and it's what makes this album really stand out; there's just a lot more riffs and melodies than on the previous album, and a lot more diversity with them.
Of course, I'm stalling; let's talk about that violin. Yes, of course it steals the show here again, but the band seems more aware of it here and just rolls with it. It's not like the entire album is drenched in the wailing violin melodies you'd expect, but there's a lot of them, and a lot of variety with them. The bright melodies during the first break of Triptych Lux, a long solo during the middle quiet build of the track, and a climactic solo near the end of the track. Pyrrhic has a number of unsettling violin moments in its first half that often bleed directly into harsh vocal lines or guitar melodies, it's really well-integrated. There's also a really restrained violin line during the slow build of the second half that really helps drive the mood. There's a two-and-a-half solo starting at 5 minutes into Devour Me, Colossus that's a lot darker in tone than the other bigger solos on the album, makes for a nice change of pace. And there's one last wailing violin moment during the song's final build that segues nicely into a guitar lead. And of course, the violin utterly steals the show of the three shorter tracks here, especially Contortions; jesus christ, what a song.
I'm still not going to say it's a perfect album, or one that's fully realized, but it's got more great moments than Portal of I and in two-thirds the time, making it easily a much more cohesive and engaging listen from front to back, not many dull spots with how often the songs change up, and rarely do any of the transitions feel forced or awkward. It's just a well-written album that covers a wide variety of moods, especially the darker and more visceral moods. I'd still call Forget Not the best song the band's done by a pretty solid margin and this album's biggest weakness is not having a song quite that good, but when all the songs the album does have are pretty great regardless it's barely a fault. Just a really strong and unique metal album that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone into extreme metal.
Favorite Tracks: Painters of the Tempest, Devour Me, Colossus, Pyrrhic
Least Favorite Tracks: There's literally three songs and I can't even.
8.5/10
DTF Addendum: Dang, this album is always just a joy to listen to. I kind of want to listen to it again right now. Maybe I will. Violins are terrifying.
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#13: Leprous - The Congregation
#4 for 2015
(https://www.metalinjection.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Leprous_cover2015-1024x1024.jpg)
I think I overdosed a bit on this album when I first got it due to how fresh and unique it sounded. I've heard plenty of prog metal, but never an album that seems this stubborn on throwing aside conventions of the genre and replacing them with its own unique flavor. Tons of jagged rhythms and strange chords scattered throughout the entire album, with a lot of synth-driven atmosphere and a ton of catchy choruses making up most of the rest.
The weird thing about this album is how simple it all is. Here's literally every single song structure on the album:
[Intro] - [Verse] - [Chorus] - [Verse] - {Bridge} - [Chorus] - {Outro}
Not every track has a bridge or outro but the rest? Completely intact in every track. There may be a few slight deviations from the formula, sure, but it doesn't change much. And that's... completely fine, when the band is as good at pulling off all these structures as well as they do. It's not like the album sounds really samey; I'd say every track is unique enough, with a few of them especially having a ton of flavor to them.
The album is a great balance of all the instruments and the vocals, as well. Guitars drive a lot of the grooves and power, drums handle the often complex rhythms, synths drive the atmosphere, and the vocals handle the emotional aspects of the album. The only instrument here that feels a bit underplayed is the bass, which honestly doesn't seem to have a lot to do other than double the guitar.
Special mention should be given to Einar's vocals, as he may be one of the best vocalists in metal right now. He nails every single moment he has on the album without fail. Somber, softer verses? Expect some pretty, smooth melodies. Powerful chorus? Einar can handle the intensity, usually makes it sound even bigger. And even the moment of growls at the end of Rewind sounds great. More than anything else he's what makes this album work. The best chorus on the album easily belongs to The Flood, but Triumphant and Third Law aren't far behind, and even the simpler choruses like Down work quite well.
Not that I intend to sideline the rest of the album. Let's start with the riffs. Because... damn, can these guys write and play a great riff. The main riff of The Price is absolutely addictive, and Down has a pretty catchy jagged riff as well. Red is especially interesting for how technical it is throughout and the guitar drives a lot of the main riff here. The more straightforward riffs don't slack, either; the verse riff of Third Law is a real headbanger, the consistent groove of The Flood is probably its greatest strength, and especially the main riff of Triumphant, which is one of the best riffs I've ever heard. I don't mind that basically the entire song is based off that riff, it's just fantastic.
The drums get a ton of moments to shine, too. The energetic but restrained verses of The Price, the chaotic intro of Third Law as well as the more atmospheric reprise later on, the build of the second verse of Rewind and the sheer intensity of its outro, the groove at the end of The Flood, the rawness of Triumphant, and last but definitely not least Moon, which is practically just a showcase of how good the drums are at setting the mood. There's almost an ambient rhythm to the softer parts, a lot of power to the chorus, and the build in the outro is wonderful.
The song excels in its slower, softer moments as well, though. Slave especially is just pure atmosphere, an apocalyptic, bleak mood throughout, driven by huge guitar and piercing synths, with Einar's strained, broken vocals matching the mood perfectly. There's a lot of moments especially driven by the synth; the first verse of Rewind builds on a quiet synth line, the pulse of The Flood is driven by a bassy synth, and Moon has a ton of atmosphere in its verses and outro buildup. Lower has some nice softer moments too in its verses.
Really there's very little to dislike here. Within My Fence doesn't have the greatest main riff and the vocal lines are a bit annoying at points, but I still have to admit it has a great chorus. And Red is maybe a bit too overindulgent for its own good, it's a cool song but pretty hard to get too into. Lower is also a bit anticlimactic of a finale but it's still a solid song on its own.
Mostly this is nitpicking though, the album is pretty damn strong front-to-back, though I'd say the first 5 songs pretty handily destroy most of the rest, it's a bit frontloaded for sure. If you want a real breath of fresh air in the progressive metal community, or just an oddly accessible but still satisfying album, I'd easily recommend it, and I'm definitely interested in seeing where the band goes from here.
Favorite Tracks: The Flood, Rewind, Slave, Triumphant, Third Law
Least Favorite Track: Within My Fence
8.5/10
DTF Addendum: I can totally understand why people wouldn't like this album but personally it's totally my kind of music. It's also pretty easy to burn out on and I wouldn't say every track is spectacular but a good number of them are quite good. I have Bilateral in my pile-o-stuff-what-I-got-last-month and actually am gonna put it into my rotation tomorrow so we'll see how it stacks up to this one for me.
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Best vocalist? I can't stand a single line of his singing, not to mention entire songs.
The vocalist is probably the main reason why I can't get into this band.
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Two awesome albums. I don't love The Congregation as much as you seem to love it, but it was definitely a real breath of fresh in air in prog metal and a huge improvement over Coal.
I'm still not quite sure which NeO album I prefer. I'd probably have them both around 9-ish, so I rate both of them a little higher than you do, but they are both stunning.
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Within My Fence is the fifth best track though :)
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I love The Congregation :tup I knew Bilateral before The Congregation was released but with The Congregation I fell in love with their music and then I realized Bilateral is great as well (and TPS). Have yet to check Coal.
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The Congregation is a good album. And Einar might be "one of the best vocalists in metal" one day, if he ever learns the language he insists on singing in. His voice itself is great though.
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Actually the 'foreign articulation' is one of the charms of Leprous' vocals to me, if he improves on his english skills the foreign accent might deminish/vanish.
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Really? It just annoys the hell out of me every time he butchers his own words.
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The Congregation is a good album. And Einar might be "one of the best vocalists in metal" one day, if he ever learns the language he insists on singing in. His voice itself is great though.
Luckily I can't hear the bad English, and to me is my favourite vocalist in metal today. I have never heard vocal performances as powerful as the ones on the end of Forced Entry, Acquired Taste, Mb. Indifferentia or the first half of Foe, just to name the first three clearest examples. I have to admit that from the recent live video I saw on youtube he might not be as extraordinary as he was when I saw him in 2011.
Daniel Gildenlow of PoS is my really close second favourite.
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Unfortunately Gildenlöw isn't remotely capable of what he did on records like TPE nowadays, which is a damn shame.
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I've been listening to Leprous songs on and off for years and they've never clicked with me :P
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#12: David Maxim Micic - Bilo 3.0
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3971053867_10.jpg)
The gap between Bilo 2.0 and 3.0 has to be one of the biggest jumps in quality I've ever seen. Gone are the mindless djent riffing and tedious, show-offy instrumentals. Instead, we've got a lot of gorgeous, well-textured gentler moments, a long list of vocalists to drive powerful melodies and hooks, and just a much wider variety of styles and songs.
The album's order feels well thought-out and carefully planned to be as natural-sounding as possible; the gentle start of Everything's Fine, the bombastic build of Where Is Now?, the heaviness and catchy chorus of Smile, the cooldown reprise of Nostalgia, the atmosphere and build of Wrinkle Maze, and the pure power and beauty of Daydreamers, every track is in its right place and the album ends up all the better for it.
There's a lot of non-metal elements on this album, probably more than the metal really. Everything's Fine is a beautiful piano and strings instrumental, building up to a powerful crescendo by the song's end. Where Is Now? flows almost effortlessly into a big band and scat singing interlude, Smile has some wailing, unhinged vocals from both a male and female singer, one of the main motifs of Nostalgia is vaguely bluesy, with an extremely bluesy guitar line coming in near the end. Wrinkle Maze kicks off with almost three minutes of gentle piano and strings build, and Daydreamers has its long middle break with piano, child vocals, a folky guitar line, and some gentle xylophone(?) twinkles creating a very delicate atmosphere. And it's all just really-well integrated into the music.
The djent influences are not gone entirely, either, but often used as a foundation for something more interesting. There's the chuggy groove under the Bilo Part IV motif during large parts of Where Is Now? that gives the song a great driving feel, and the spectacular groove that builds the bass for the big band section later in the song. Smile has a really djenty guitar line during its middle leading up to the strange vocal moments, there's a slight djent vibe to the riff under the motif near the end of Nostalgia, and the bombast of Daydreamers is built off really jagged, djenty grooves driven by guitar, bass, and drums. The only one of these I'm not a fan of is the break in Smile, but it's so short that I don't mind much. The rest, well, the grooves here are clearly not just showing off weird technical stuff nobody really cares about, they're all just strong grooves that compliment the rest of the music well.
There's still a good bit of the soloing that was pretty prevalent throughout the first two Bilo releases, as well; a gorgeous violin solo three minutes into Where Is Now? and a frantic, muted solo near the end, the brief dissonant guitar solo in Smile and a shreddier one closing out the track, some really and pleasant guitar and synth solos halfway through Nostalgia, a triumphant guitar solo driving the climax of Wrinkle Maze, and a restrained melodic guitar solo building up to the final climax of Daydreamers. A few of them veer a bit too hard into showoffy territory but they're generally all pretty solid and the relative sparsity of them compared to previous releases is welcome.
The vocals on this album are very diverse, as well. There's the bombastic wall of vocals in Where Is Now? lead by a female voice, and the playful scat singing breaking in the middle of the track. Smile is driven primarily by a rough-edged female voice toeing the line between pure growls and melody pretty well, still not my favorite vocals but they've grown on me. And of course, the unhinged male and female bits during the chaotic breakdown in the middle of the track. Wrinkle Maze has a choir of vocals coming in for the bombast of its last two minutes, and Daydreamers has a strong female vocal performance backed by some male vocals in its chorus, with the endearing child singing during its quieter moments. I can't really place any of the listed names to the voices, honestly, but they all do a good job, really add a lot to the music here.
The bass gets its moments to shine, as well; the nice, thick groove under the violin solo of Where Is Now?, the bass driving the jagged groove during the verses of Smile. Honestly, more than anything else, the bass utterly dominates Nostalgia, so many great grooves and atmosphere-driving melodies, a ton of small flourishes, it's just generally great. There's a strong bass groove driving the verses of Daydreamers, and the melodic, bass-driven atmosphere that drives the first half of the quiet break is gorgeous as well.
The drums on this album often do well to ground and drive the grooves; the steady rhythms during the first half of Where Is Now? and the booming drive during the louder moments of Daydreamers especially. There's a lot of quieter moments where drums have a restrained energy to them, lots of soft snare hits creating a frantic but quiet mood. The first verses of Smile, the atmosphere of Nostalgia, and the groove backing the guitar-driven break of Daydreamers. I wouldn't really say there are a lot of real standout moments but the drums do their job well, certainly.
Really, what makes this album work so well more than its diversity and creativity is the fact that it emotes so much better than Micic's previous works. From the gorgeous Everything's Fine, to the driving Where Is Now?, to the intense Smile, to the, well, nostalgic Nostalgia, the gentle Wrinkle Maze, and the balance of pure intensity and beauty of Daydreamers. A large chunk of the music can really just breathe and feel natural with how organic and emotive it is, it's really the element Micic had been missing more than anything else up until now.
On the whole though, yeah, I'm definitely a happier person for having spun this album as many times as I have, it's a joy to listen to and keep listening to, and such an improvement in only a year and a half from the previous Bilo. If you're bored of djent in general, this is probably a good album to go to since it has a lot of the same elements but rarely seems to want to use them in the clichéd manner djent normally does, and there's much more progressive rock/metal here than any djent. It's a worthy listen for pretty much anyone, though, I'd say the appeal of this is pretty broad with how many other styles it pulls in and executes well. Great album, definitely.
Favorite Tracks: Nostalgia, Where Is Now?, Daydreamers
Least Favorite Track: Smile
8.75/10
DTF Addendum: Waddup Sacul :corn
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on an unrelated note, if i cared about lyrics at all maybe i'd care that he mispronounces words but i've never really noticed it so :lol
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I like this one pretty well. I don't really like the vocals in Smile. Wrinkle Maze and Daydreamers are really good, though!
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I agree about Bilo 3.0. It's a great album.
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I prefer Lun to anything DMM has done, but BILO 3.0 followed by ECO come pretty close.
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I became a casual fan of David short after he released Bilo 2.0, but with 3.0 he just blew me away - as you said, a very organic, full-of-life sound that was missing on his previous releases, plus tons of creativity. One of my favourite albums ever :hefdaddy
Smile is the second best song there tho :loser:
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i like that we can all disagree about ;D
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Apart from Cloudkicker/Periphery I haven't really gotten into Djent and I feel kinda apprehensive about it. It definitely feels like a genre where, if you have done it, you have done all there is to it. It's not really a genre you can do much with. I found both Tesseract and Animals as Leaders to be pretty darn boring but maybe this is better. Still, I feel like Prog Metal is moving into the wrong direction with Djent. It needs to get more exciting, not less exciting.
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I found both Tesseract and Animals as Leaders to be pretty darn boring but maybe this is better.
This is nothing like those mentioned bands, and barely djent anyways. I think you'd like it, it's a very creative and varied record :P
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I found both Tesseract and Animals as Leaders to be pretty darn boring
:facepalm: :loser: :facepalm:
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#11: Intronaut - The Direction of Last Things
#3 for 2015
(https://www.metalinjection.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/TDOLT_Cover.jpg)
The Direction of Last Things is actually the last album from my 2015 collection to be properly reviewed. Partially by intention, as I pegged it for the last one by the time I had about 5 albums left to go, but mostly by coincidence. And man, what a great album to end on. It's the kind of album that pretty well sums up my year; a lot of intense and jagged instrumental jams, some really gorgeous soundscapes both light and heavy, and pretty easily the peak of this band's career - it's a good one.
This is easily their heaviest album since Prehistoricisms, maybe even heavier overall. The harsh vocals are back in full force, and the clean vocals that come along with them sound better than ever. There's even a fair number of cooperation between the two; some tradeoffs in Fast Worms and The Pleasant Surprise and some moments of both clean and harsh vocals at once in Sul Ponticello and City Hymnal. The harsh vocals are generally used to accentuate the heavier and more moments of the album; the verses of Fast Worms, the manic energy of The Pleasant Surprise, the sludgy and dissonant moments of The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing, the heavy opening of Sul Ponticello, the driving heaviness of The Direction of Last Things. The cleans are generally used in two ways; harmonized and massive moments driving some more heavier passages; all throughout the crushing Digital Gerrymandering, the huge middle of The Pleasant Surprise, the sludgy chorus of Sul Ponticello, the driving verses of The Direction of Last Things, and the trumphant climaxes of City Hymnal. There's also a lot of more ethereal vocals that provide texture to the quieter, more atmospheric breaks on the album; the opening verses of The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing, the restrained middle of Sul Ponticello, the dreamy build at the end of The Direction of Last Things, and the upbeat ethereal middle of City Hymnal. There's still a good chunk of the album that's purely instrumental but there's enough vocals of enough varieties to keep you satisfied.
This is probably the band's first album where all three main instruments are equally important; of course there's still a ton of great drum moments, and a lot of strong bass grooves, but the guitar presence on this album is higher than ever and much more important. There's so many crushing riffs - the first sludgy riff of Fast Worms, the pounding verse of Digital Gerrymandering, the jagged chorus of The Pleasant Surprise, the crushing and dissonant moments of The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing, that crunchy main riff of Sul Ponticello, the weirdly bright and powerful main riff of The Direction of Last Things. There's a lot of noodly and frantic guitar lines; the dissonance of Digital Gerrymandering, the rhythmic edge throughout The Pleasant Surprise, the melodic ending lines of Sul Ponticello, the bright and energetic lines throughout The Direction of Last Things, and the bright noodling at the start and end of City Hymnal. There's a lot of gorgeous textures; the jazzy chords and twinkly atmosphere during Fast Worms, basically the entirety of The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing, the gentle build at the end of The Direction of Last Things, the spacey reverb during the middle of City Hymnal. And so much more even still, but pointing out every last moment would be redundant; suffice to say there's a ton of great ones.
The bass is actually a bit downplayed here, but not too much that it doesn't still have a ton of moments of its own. There's a lot of doubling the guitar riffs or chords going on, which tends to add a thicker sound, certainly not a negative. There's some thumping bass in Fast Worms as well as a really gorgeous bass solo. Digital Gerrymandering has a ton of moments; the groovy bassline around 1:40, an upbeat line at 3:50, and some jagged bass during the track's conclusion. There's a nice thick bass throughout The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing, but I especially like the groove when the band kicks back in for the atmospheric outro. The small flourishes the bass adds to the main riff of The Direction of Last Things are cool, and the thumping bass of the song's outro build creates a nice driving feel. Plenty more cool moments to discover throughout the album too, it's just loaded with them.
The drums on this album have a pretty interesting quality about them in that they really seem to like driving the energy of songs even during quieter breaks. The middle quiet break of Fast Worms, the manic and jagged break at 5:00 of Digital Gerrymandering, the passage at 3:20 of The Unlikely Event, the driving groove in the middle of Sul Ponticello, and the constant energy running through City Hymnal, even the more atmospheric moments. Really, the drums tend to be pretty upbeat throughout. The Pleasant Surprise is a nonstop barrage of jagged drum grooves, and The Direction of Last Things has driving double bass throughout its first three minutes keeping the energy high. There's a satisfying amount of slower grooves, too; the crushing intro of Fast Worms, the polyrhythmic groove of Digital Gerrymandering, the sludgy chorus of The Pleasant Surprise, and the slower, driving rhythm of Sul Ponticello to name a few. City Hymnal in particular is notable for its drumming throughout which just has no chill; especially that monster fill at 5:05 leading into the manic outro. Odds are that you could point to any random moment of the album, though, and assuming it has drums at all, you'll probably find a really cool moment of them.
I think my biggest gripe with this album is the weird breaks for samples that happen on a few occasions. The first minute of The Unlikely Event and the last minute of Sul Ponticello both feel pretty extraneous, and there's a weird sample at the start of The Pleasant Surprise as well, though brief. This is more a nitpick than anything else. I guess you could also make the argument that the album doesn't have a ton of emotional impact, which is, yeah, fair, but Intronaut is the rare case that can make technical playing interesting on its own by just doing such unique things with their instruments and avoiding the pitfalls of mindless solos or chuggy riffing; no, they just like to confuse you with wacky rhythms that create noisy atmospheres, which I really dig. Fast Worms and Sul Ponticello both have a lot of this kind of stuff.
Really overall though this is pretty clearly the pinnacle of the band's work to me; maybe not as diverse as Prehistoricisms, but the bar is just a lot higher, there's little to no filler and each song pretty well carves its own identity, no experiments that don't work, a ton of moods ranging from the subtle and gorgeous to the crushingly heavy and all of them done so well. It's basically the ideal technical metal album. Not the best I've heard, mind you, but the most pure and mind-boggling, and it's always a joy to listen to. And that's the last thing I have to say about it.
Favorite Tracks: The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing, Fast Worms, Digital Gerrymandering, Sul Ponticello
Least Favorite Track: The Direction of Last Things
8.75/10
DTF Addendum: Poor album just barely missed the top 10, but it's still damn great and easily my favorite of theirs. I kind of had a premonition it would be and yeeeaah this is everything I love about the band wrapped up in a nice 46 minute package.
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oh and yeah Bilo 3.0 and ECO are nothing like Periphery, TesseracT, AAL, etc. really
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Great album!
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Ah man thouht this would be top 5 for sure, I enjoyed this album myself for sure, but I've yet to give it more than 1 listen. Big step up from the album you sent me a song of IMO
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man, it's an amazing album, just that i had 10 better ones :lol
at the end of the day i did pretty well to amass a very nice amount of great albums and i'm happy about that much
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Good album with some cool artwork that falls a bit on its production and the fact that some songs doesn't really have a beginning or end, they just "chug on".
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#10: The Hirsch Effekt - Holon : Agnosie
#2 for 2015
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0504848772_10.jpg)
I've had a hard time really finding any mathcore that worked for me; usually it's just too angry or too relentlessly heavy, too focused on doing technical crazy stuff that ends up sounding like gibberish to the listener. So what did this band do to make it work? Well, one, the album's not relentlessly heavy; three of the ten main tracks aren't even metal, and nearly every track has some calmer moments. Two, add a focus on melody. There are some crazy breakdown-type bits here, but just as many guitar leads to balanced them out. Three, CRAZY GOOD FLOW.
Seriously, more than anything else, I'd use this album as an example of how to construct an album that flows well and feels both really cohesive and really diverse. Simurgh builds up nicely to a heavier sound instead of dumping you in blind. Jayus is generally pretty heavy but also straightforward and not that technical. Agnoise is probably the most "standard" mathcore track, but you're warmed up for it by now. Chelicera provides a brief breather between two more intense tracks. Bezoar goes even further into madness, but ends by cooling down some and transitioning smoothly into the next track. After the assault of the previous three tracks, Tombeau provides a straightforward and gorgeous softer moment. Emphysema starts off quiet but builds up to a more intense, somewhat technical sound by the end. Defaetist provides another simple breather between two of the heavier tracks. Fixum really gets back into the swing of things, maybe the most technical track on the album, though not the heaviest. After its insanity, Athesie provides another nice cooldown, though it has some punch to it as well. Tischje bridges the gap between the bright Athesie and the crushing Dysgeusie by being quiet but unsettling. Dysgeusie is one brief shot of manic energy before the finale. Cotard has a strong air of finality to it and a reprise of Simurgh to close things out. Really, even without diving into the songs themselves, this album would already be a work of art for its flow and diversity alone; no two tracks are that similar, but the whole ride feels smooth as butter.
Thankfully, the quality doesn't end there; yes, of course, the songs themselves are all pretty great. I think I'll start out with all the small, weird oddities this album has, the elements that aren't "standard".
There's the brass ensembles on several tracks; playing the main motif of Simurgh as well as its reprise on Cotard, some horns adding to a heavy moment at 2:50 of Agnosie, as well as providing some unsettling melodies later on; and some more brass on the second chorus of Emphysema.
There's some strings presence as well; not gratuitous, but present enough to highlight some specific moments. The buildup into the second chorus of Agnosie has some nice wailing violins, there's the outro of Bezoar with a symphonic reprise of the chorus, and there's a pretty string passage near the end of Tombeau.
The piano and keyboards, as well, show up enough to make note of. There's, of course, the ambient intro of Simurgh, there's what sounds like someone banging on a piano near the end of Jayus, there's the entire of Tombeau, and there's the bright synth of Athesie that gives it a poppy vibe.
Another thing worth highlighting is the choruses to most of these songs; despite all the lyrics being in German and thus incomprehensible to me, they tend to be pretty damn catchy and usually pretty powerful as well. Agnosie has a straightforward, driving chorus, Bezoar has its manic, highly melodic and obscenely catchy chorus, Emphysema has a booming and triumphant, sort of laid-back chorus, Fixum has another straightforward chorus in the midst of its chaos, some nice vocal harmonies going on, Athesie has a punchy and climactic chorus with great guitar work, and Cotard has just a gorgeous and triumphant chorus, bright melodic guitar lines playing under some great vocal melodies.
Anyways, with that all out of the way, diving in to the real meat of the album: its musicianship. One thing I really like about this album is how clearly everything comes through. It's also weird because I find slight fault with how thin the guitar tone can sound sometimes; any single-note riffs often tend to be not that heavy, no matter how heavy they try to be. Other than that though the album's production is great, especially like how well-mixed the bass is, always plenty audible but not drowning anything out. But the point is, it's really easy to listen to and enjoy all the instrumentation.
Which is good, since it's generally pretty stellar. The bass gets a lot of cool moments; accentuating the bass drum at 3:40 of Agnosie, helping to drive the jagged outro groove of the same song, providing a solid backing to the intro guitar solo of Bezoar, and a great bass solo during the jazzy break of the same, a number of nice, rhythmic basslines through Emphysema, throughout Fixum as well, driving a frantic moment near the intro, a great groove at 1:30, the huge thick tone at 3:05, a really cool solo during the break at 4:25, the bass really owns this song especially. There's just a ton of cool moments throughout though, more than I can even remember.
The same goes for the drums, a nice variation on the different styles while often having a technical edge. There's the marching beat of Simurgh, the booming intro of Jayus, the upbeat, punky beats and twisted rhythms of Agnosie, the death metal intensity of Bezoar along with some wacky rhythms and the manic outro bits, the energy of the break of Emphysema, the rhythmic synchronizations of Fixum as well as the intense build up to the final chorus, the addictive grooves of Athesie, the unfiltered energy of Dysgeusie, and the constant driving feel of the drums throughout Cotard.
As with a lot of metal albums, though, the star of the album is the guitar work. Sometimes as simple as the straightforward chords of Emphysema and Dysgeusie. Often playing some really jagged riffs; Agnosie, Bezoar, and Fixum are especially loaded with these. Only a few solos; one shreddy one at the start and one jazzy one during the middle of Bezoar, as well as a really chill melodic solo in Athesie. A lot more noodly guitar lines than just those, though; the intro of Jayus, the chorus of Bezoar, the first main riff of Emphysema, and a ton in Cotard, the verses and choruses, the buildup to the outro especially. Some straightforward crushing chords,, usually accompanying a chorus. Notably the first vocal bit of Bezoar has an almost black metal feel to it, between the guitar, drums, and vocals. And some really sludgy/heavy riffs. The slower outro of Agnosie, the crushing ending of Dysgeusie, and a few moments in the middle of Cotard. Even a few twangy guitar lines; one prevalent throughout a lot of Agonsie, one that punctuates a number of bars in Bezoar, and a tiny moment at 3:30 of Fixum. It's just, really diverse and constantly interesting, really unlikely to have the same kind of playing for multiple passages in a row.
The vocals, as well. The cleans are generally really quite good and melodic, enough power and emotive presence behind them to work for me, even if I don't understand the lyrics. The harsh vocals are pretty standard metalcore kind of vocals, don't really dislike them nor am I particularly into them, but they work for the music quite well, adding a lot of intensity to some of the heavier moments.
Really though, it's impressive how much of a joy this album is to listen to front-to-back, and even on a song-by-song basis, a lot of great tunes with only a few weaker ones, and even the worst song here is still solid enough. As previously said, this is probably one of the best-flowing albums I've ever heard, and it hasn't lost its luster on repeated listens due to how much there is going on in the tracks here, the diversity and creativity are great. Maybe not the heaviest, most complex or mind-bending, or angriest mathcore out there, but probably the mathcore that appeals to me the most. Really strong album.
Favorite Tracks: Cotard, Athesie, Bezoar, Fixum, Emphysema, Tombeau
Least Favorite Track: Dysgeusie
8.75/10
DTF Addendum: I just, I can't get over how good this album's structure and flow are. Everything just fits into place perfectly. I'd probably like this a fair bit less if the track order was even a little different.
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Ye this is basically the kind of crazy you seem to be loving as of late *le corn*
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It's barely crazy. It's a nice album, but it sounds like an accessible mix of Dillinger escape plan, Psyopus and Exotic Animal Petting Zoo, without being as good or extreme as any these three, or adding anything to them. Not bad, but I can't help but feel like they're coming a little late in the game, and that they're all over the placce, stealing from other bands, because they can't have musical ideas of their own...
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Thanks Parama, this sound interesting to me.
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#9: Bent Knee - Shiny Eyed Babies
(https://consequenceofsound.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/bent-knee.jpg)
This album was quite the grower for me. I heard Being Human beforehand, loved it, decided to check out the album, and... wasn't that into it, actually. Found it alright but it didn't really stand out. But... Being Human was like that at first, and there were at least a few tracks that caught my ear, so I gave it another listen later and ended up picking it up and spinning it quite a bit.
But it's also quite an exhausting album, and after about 5 more spins I knew most of the songs pretty well and was kind of burned out on it, even though I liked it. But putting it aside for a while after that and coming back to it once in a while, it just seemed to get better every time. There's just a ton of great music on this album, and the best part is how all the great songs are great in different ways.
Really, no two songs on this sound that much alike, even the three short piano tracks. Each track has something to offer and even the tracks I don't like quite as much (or even the one I kind of dislike) all have pretty strong moments in them.
One of the most striking elements on this album is the vocal performance, which is often a bit over-the-top and rather intense, but also pretty moody, there are a lot of quieter moments pulled off quite well. But yeah, damn, she can sing. The only track where I think she overdoes it and kind of ruins the song for me is Dry, which has an excess of vibrato and oversinging and kind of sounds like a silly Disney villain song more than anything else.
But on the rest of the album? Yeah, tons of great performances. Shiny Eyed Babies and Untitled have some of the more restrained performances, both songs carrying a melancholic and melodic mood to them, and in the former especially she nails it, the tone of the song is quite strong. Other standouts among the more subtle vocal moments include the earlier moments of In God We Trust, the sinister vibe of Battle Creek, the uneasy verses of Sunshine, and the gorgeous verses of Being Human.
Of course, her real vocal strengths are the more intense moments. Way Too Long is a huge song and the vocals throughout are suitably intense, the second chorus of In God We Trust and especially the later moments of the build at the end are damn powerful, the second chorus of Dead Horse is pretty climactic as well, there's the utterly heartbreaking choruses of Battle Creek, the demonic screams at the end of Sunshine that are absolutely terrifying, the playful groove of the chorus in Skin, the intensity of Being Human's last two choruses, and the huge layers of vocals in the second chorus of Toothsmile. The vocals here take all these moments from great to amazing, just absolutely sells them.
Of course, if this album were just a vocal powerhouse with weak instrumentation, I wouldn't like it nearly as much as I do. But no, the music here is just as powerful if not even better than the vocals, honestly, it's hard to decide. The only instrument here that's a bit under-utilized is the bass, but there's still some cool moments of bass groove, especially in the first half of Skin. The drums are probably next, but they get a lot more shining moments. The plodding intro of Way Too Long and the chaotic middle of the track, the utter breakdown at the end of Dry, the driving rhythms of In God We Trust that get pretty intense by the end, the second chorus of Dead Horse where the drums really help ground the music, the groove of Skin, and the chaos of the middle of Being Human.
The guitar work on this album is pretty diverse, as well; you've got the huge riffs of Way Too Long, the driving outro riff of In God We Trust, the jagged guitar lines in Dead Horse, the driving muted guitar lines in the verses of Sunshine, the dissonant noise of the back half of Skin, the explosive first two choruses of Being Human and its chaotic middle. The violin, too, does a damn great job. There's the driving violin that forms the backbone of the first half of In God We Trust, the warm melodies of I'm Still Here, the piercing flourishes of Dead Horse, the folky main line of Sunshine, the bouncy intro and prechorus melody of Skin, and the destructive wails closing out Toothsmile. Tons of chilling and powerful moments from both instruments, too many to mention them all here here.
The keyboards on this album also have a ton of show-stealing moments, though it's often in the quieter stretches of the album. The three piano tracks aside, the keyboards do a lot to add to the atmosphere of the tracks. The bridge of Way Too Long has a nice thick organ sound, the ambient moments of I'm Still Here, Dead Horse, and Being Human are all quite warm and soothing, the punchy intro of Dead Horse, a huge wall of noise in the back half of Skin that gives way to a jazzy piano outro, the gorgeous verses of Being Human as well as the unsettling dissonant line on the bridge, and the oddly distorted and uneasy sound of Toothsmile.
The best moments of the album tend to be when all these instruments work together to produce some truly breathtaking moments, though; the entire second half of In God We Trust, the second chorus of Dead Horse,, the climactic first chorus of Battle Creek, the visceral and disturbing buildup at the end of Sunshine, the addictive groove of Skin, basically every single moment of Being Human, and the implosion of sound that Toothsmile builds up into. I can't believe how many fantastic moments this album has, honestly, and especially how moody all of them are; from heart-wrenching, to powerful and intense, to utterly gorgeous, triumphant, disturbing and terrifying, there's a whole spectrum of emotions conveyed through these songs.
I'm sort of stunned by how much this album grew on me, honestly; it's not hard to pick my favorite track but there's eight tracks here I'd call genuinely great, with only one track that's any degree of weak. It's a pretty concise album, too, just over an hour and with no particularly long songs, only a tiny few moments that feel stretched out a bit too long. It's a rollercoaster of a ride and it flows pretty damn well front-to-back, with most songs standing out quite well on their own. I wouldn't say it's one of my absolute favorite albums ever, but it's definitely the kind of album I see myself returning to quite a lot in the future.
Favorite Tracks: Being Human, In God We Trust, Sunshine, Battle Creek, Way Too Long
Least Favorite Track: Dry
9/10
DTF Addendum: Oh hey, a 9.0. I can't help it when there's so many fantastic songs on the album. If only Dry and also kind of I'm Still Here were better. But yes this was a high-quality roulette find for sure.
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:metal
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2hipster4me
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Amazing amazing album.
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I meh'd songs from both of these albums in the championship roulette :lol
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In God We Trust, Sunshine and Battle Creek are my favorites so yeah good job on that list. This album is gr8
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sunshine is one of my favorite covers ever, as i don't tend to like covers much
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:metal
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Oh btw, forgot to mention, but the drums on Bilo 3.0 are all programmed. Yes, that's a vst and David drumming on a keyboard. Same on all his releases except Lun. The man surely knows how to produce his music.
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#8: David Maxim Micic - ECO
#1 for 2015
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1727343719_10.jpg)
Whereas my immediate reaction to EGO was boredom and disinterest, my immediate reaction to ECO was about the opposite. This is the direction I'd really love to see Micic take his music. He hasn't lost the technicality of Bilo 3.0, but what's been added is even greater emotional depth and atmosphere - this is a really beautiful record, despite its minor djent leanings.
The most prominent and important part of this album is definitely its atmosphere. This album sounds gorgeous. There's the two short instrumental tracks, Universe in a Crayon being a piano-driven piece that adds some climactic strings in its second half, and Voda, a guitar-driven atmospheric piece that explodes by the end, serving as an extended intro to the closer. There's the three vocal tracks, all of which have a pretty different vibe to them; Satellite is upbeat and generally bright, The Flock is groovy and a bit sinister, and Stardust is just super pretty and triumphant. And there's the longer instrumental, 500 Seconds Before Sunset, which is just incredibly hypnotic and soothing, probably the best track here.
There's still some slight djent leanings to this album, sure; the second verse of Satellite has a chuggy guitar riff, The Flock has a fair amount of groove in both its booming drums and its guitar riffs that are decisively djenty, and there's a bassline in the verses of Stardust that's, while not especially heavy, definitely reminiscent of djent in its sound. There's a few other scattered moments too, but it's pretty minimal overall.
There's also definitely some ties to EGO; the main melody of 500 Seconds Before Sunset is the same as a synth melody from Develop, and The Flock reprises the main melody of Define in a much slower form. There's probably other small things I missed too, I wouldn't be surprised, but these are just the ones i noticed, and while I don't particularly care for the other EP, I still like these small touches.
The three vocalists on this album add some flavor to each of their tracks; Satellite has a pretty nice male vocalist performance, there's some nice rhythm to the verses and the chorus is pretty stellar, quite like the massive bridge of the track too. The Flock's vocalist fits the song's tone pretty well, but the tone is a bit sinister compared to the rest of the album and feels a bit out of place as a whole; the vocal performance is still fine enough though. The vocalist on Stardust is probably the least "skilled" of the three but also the most earnest, and on top of that the vocal melodies she has are easily the best on the album, especially that chorus.
An element of the album I really like is its use of guitars, just in general. There's some guitar noodling in the background of the verses on Satellite, a nice solo around the halfway point that's a good balance of melody and technicality, and a break at 7:20 that's just really cool and tasteful. 500 Seconds Before Sunset has a lot of subtle guitar work in its chorus and verses, as well as two passages in a row starting at 4:10 with some more tasteful, kind of glitchy guitar. There's a really nice guitar lead at 1:25 of Voda, not to mention the reverb-drenched guitar atmosphere of the rest of the track that's just really gorgeous. Stardust has some really warm guitar chords in its intro and a plucky energy to the guitar lines in the verse. There's also another balanced solo in the back half of the second verse that's a pleasure to listen to.
In contrast to the "weird" elements EGO used that felt forced and awkward on Disorder, the similar elements used on this album fit right in and add a nice amount of flavor when they show up. There's some marimba in the opening bits of Satellite, the clapping rhythm of the verses of 500 Seconds Before Sunset, as well as a strange breathy synth in one passage of the song, and the wonderful violin solos of The Flock. They're not really intrusive elements, they don't feel out of place and they add a lot to the songs they're featured in, though there isn't a whole lot of them here, but I'm fine with that.
Really, breaking this album down by its parts doesn't really do it justice though. What really matters here is that every time I listen to this album, it's just a very soothing, relaxing experience. It's basically impossible not to be happy once the album reaches its conclusion, there's really very few faults to it and enough great moments alongside the gorgeous atmosphere to keep it relistenable and engaging, though also great just as background music. Micic, I hope you pursue this route in your further musical releases instead of the disaster that was EGO.
Favorite Tracks: 500 Seconds Before Sunset, Stardust, Satellite
Least Favorite Track: The Flock
9/10
DTF Addendum: Yup, first and last for 2015 are companion releases. Funny how that goes. But yeah I adore this release. 500 Seconds Before Sunset is one of the most "perfect" songs I've ever heard. Also I'm posting four today and four tomorrow because I'm leaving for a trip tuesday afternoon and need to get this done before then oops.
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Yeah, this is definitely the best DMM after Lun.
Also in regards to the programmed drums, I find it kinda funny how nowadays the drums are compressed and produced in such a way (in djent and these types of metal atleast) that it doesn't really matter if you use a live drummer or a program anymore.
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Was just binge-listening to the DMM discography, was actually my first experience with his music as I bought it back when he had the discography for 10 bucks action but never listened to it.
I definitely have to give it more time but I love what I've heard so far, the sheer atmosphere he creates is something I don't hear too often in djent, those are probably my favorite things about the music too, not the crazy guest singers (though that's pretty great too).
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Is this guy like the Merzbow of Djent? So many albums on this list D:
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see: the "entire discography for sale for $10" thing train mentioned
aside from the destiny potato album, all of his work is on the list
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I only really love Stardust of the vocal tracks on ECO. The rest are fine, but nothing that really stuck with me. 500 Seconds of Sunset is amazing though, and both Voda and Universe in a Crayon are lovely.
Also, I'm feeling EGO is getting to much hate here. It has some really awesome moments. I get that you seem to be tired of the whole "djent" thing, I am too, but it can still be done well, and I think it is on EGO. Not AMAZING, but pretty well.
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EGO>ECO
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I think Satellite is my least favourite track here, because of the vocal melodies, bit still a great song. The other tracks are stellar :hefdaddy
Is this guy like the Merzbow of Djent?
Nah, he makes listenable music.
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the merzboy of djent would still get a 0
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I haven't listened to all that much Merzbow (mainly because he has 300 albums) but I'd say his music is fine, there's just so much of it. Same with Buckethead. I don't fucking get the whole "lets push out 4 albums per month" because even as a listener who only has to listen to the music, that's more than I'm willing to invest, and it feels like he just shits out an album for breakfast. Sure, me being lukewarm on him doesn't help, but even if someone I liked started putting out albums that often, I would lose interest.
/end rant
Anyhow the album cover of the last one was pretty cool. Obligatory "lolprog" comment but yeah, nice cover
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I'll refrain from making sweeping comments on the album because I haven't listened to it nearly enough to judge, but ECO is barely prog. It's certainly not prog in the Dream Theater sense or the Tesseract sense. I have less sense of what belongs on the Zantera side of Zantera/Sacul music than I do of the Sacul side, but I imagine that this wouldn't be totally alien to your tastes, Zantera.
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Seconding that.
IMO this album/EP is a way better attempt at what The Contortionist's Language was aiming for, but more ambient and soft, and beautiful.
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#7: Enslaved - RIITIIR
(https://cdn.theobelisk.net/obelisk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/enslaved-riitiir-cover.jpg)
I got to have the experience of having this album just reeeally click with me last night while typing up my song-by-song review, so, spoilers: This is gonna be a pretty positive review. But honestly, how can it not be when an album is as unfailingly good as this album? Honestly, I can't recall a single weak moment on the album's entire runtime. That's not to say it's perfect, since while there are no weak moments, there also isn't a huge amount of really fantastic moments, but a lack of top-quality music isn't really a problem when there's a consistent high quality throughout.
More than anything else, this album just flat-out ROCKS. Like, in the sense of "there are a ton of great riffs here". Every last song has at least a few great riffs in it, and because of the nature of the songwriting on this album you get to hear them plenty, and... they don't get old, really. Possibly the best riff on the entire album is the verse riff of the title track, which already has a nice groove to it even before the last two measures of each bar, which have just the coolest, most addictive groove to them.
Other notable riffs on the album, then. At 4:45 of Death in the Eyes of Dawn, there's this strummy riff that drives a really intense section. Veilburner has a really groovy and classy verse riff that I love. Roots of the Mountain has a really intense intro riff and a really groovy riff later on after the first chorus. RIITIIR's intro riff is also quite cool, as well as the chorus riff. Honestly this song is just a constant stream of great guitar work. Materal has a really sludgy verse riff and a really grand riff under its guitar solo. The chorus riff of Storm of Memories is addictively groovy. Forsaken alternates between two quite intense riffs in its earlier moments, both of which are just really driving and great.
And even the guitar work that's not awesome riffs tends to still be pretty great. Every guitar solo on the album is killer, a nice mixture of shred and melody, though special mention has to go to the solo in Roots of the Mountain for bringing the first half of the song to a great climax. There's also a number of nice quieter guitar moments; a somber break in the middle of Thoughts Like Hammers, a restrained and sinister guitar line in Death in the Eyes of Dawn, a clean reprise of the chorus of Roots of the Mountain, and the long, melancholic outro of Forsaken with its twin guitar lines. There's even a few moments of nice guitar leads; the intro line of Death in the Eyes of Dawn, as well as a noodly guitar bit that comes in over the intense riff of the same song, a pretty frantic guitar line building up to the bass break of Roots of the Mountain, an off-kilter and dissonant guitar line near the end of RIITIIR, and the hypnotic guitar line at the start of Storm of Memories.
Don't let me oversell the guitar though because the drums on this album are absolutely a key ingredient in making this album work so well. The drumming is quite diverse and probably one of the biggest factors in driving the mood. There's some especially intense moments; the intro of Thoughts Like Hammers, the driving chorus of Veilburner, the beastly intro of Roots of the Mountain, the brutal verses of Storm of Memories, and the manic riffing at the start of Forsaken. There's way, way more great laidback grooves though; the booming massive middle section of Veilburner, the bass groove section in the middle of Roots of the Mountain, the groovy rhythm of the second verse of RIITIIR, the pounding sludgy drumming of Materal, the driving intro and chorus groove of Storm of Memories. A few other really notable drum moments are the intro of RIITIIR, probably the most technical and all-over-the-place drumming but it's really fun to listen to, and the build back to the epic climax of Forsaken with some punchy snare rolls.
The bass is sadly a little underutilized on this album, often just buried too low in the mix to make out or have many shining moments. The most notable moments would be the thick bassline at the start of Veilburner, the excellent bass groove of Roots of the Mountain, and the long, hypnotic intro of Storm of Memories, where all the little variations keep things interesting. Some cool moments but really underutilized.
The vocals on this album cover a lot of ground. I'm honestly not a huge fan of this kind of growled vocals, a little too raspy for my taste, but they don't get in the way here. The coolest moments are when they work with the cleaner vocals, really; the last chorus of Roots of the Mountain is as climactic as it is because of the combination of the two. There's also some tradeoffs between the two in Thoughts Like Hammers, as well as the massive combination of harsh and cleans in the middle of Veilburner. Probably my favorite purely harsh moment is the climax of Forsaken, which just sounds wonderfully strained and intense. Vocally though the highlight here for me are the cleans; especially moments of harmonization. The huge chorus of Death in the Eyes of Dawn as well as the amazing chorus of Roots of the Mountain, the stretched-out verses of RIITIIR and the "feel the flames inside of you" mantra of the second chorus, some interesting vocal rhythms complimenting the groove in the middle of Materal, the catchy chorus of Storm of Memories. I am also pretty partial to the somber vocals at the end of Forsaken, they help create a pretty bleak tone.
Another thing the album does a lot and does well is reprising; there's a ton of moments where one idea is reprised in a different context and it's always a pleasure to catch. The sinister guitar line of Death in the Eyes of Dawn gets later reprised in a heavier context, Roots of the Mountain has different choruses every single time, and there's also this synth bit near the start that gets reprised on guitar about 2/3rds of the way through, the second chorus of RIITIIR which adds vocals mimicking the guitar line, and the reprise of the grand riff under Materal's solo later in a clean-sung passage. I just love this kind of stuff and I'm happy to see the band do it as frequently as they have.
I also just want to point out a moment in particular I feel like I've skimmed over thus far; the intro of Storm of Memories. It's so dang cool. Yeah, it's literally the same thing repeated for 3 minutes... with lots of textures and little samples coming in and building up into just this insanely unsettling vibe and you never know how long they're going to keep going until it finally changes up. Chills, man. A song composed of three distinct musical passages should not be as good as this song is, seriously.
But yeah, on the whole... there's a lot to like about this album, only a few truly breathtaking moments but more than enough killer grooves and banging riffs to make up for it, and each song has its own identity while still keeping a pretty solid core sound throughout the album. It's honestly an album that pretty well speaks for itself though, surprisingly straightforward even for its progressive tendencies, but I think that works out pretty dang well in its favor. Definitely an album worth checking out, though, for really any fan of metal who can tolerate a decent bit of growls.
Favorite Tracks: Roots of the Mountain, Storm of Memories, Forsaken, RIITIIR, Materal, Veilburner
Least Favorite Tracks: None. Every track is great.
9/10
DTF Addendum: So this album legitimately clicked hardcore with me while I was doing the review for it. I almost worry it's underrated here now but maybe I'll revisit it and rate it higher later; I still feel the 6 above it are better anyways, but this is still great.
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EGO>ECO
lolno
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EGO>ECO
lolno
reminder: train's signature
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#6: Alrakis - Alpha Eri
(https://www.metal-archives.com/images/3/2/0/4/320485.jpg?3141)
I think what really caught my ear from this album initially was the ambient tracks. I do dig me some nice ambient, and the two here... yeah, they're top-notch. I'd listen to a completely ambient album from Alrakis if they made one, and probably love it.
Funnily enough though that's not the part of the album I've come to appreciate the most, though. The black metal tracks here, actually... well. This is going to be a super-biased review because this is an album I had an -experience- with that basically painted every other listen to it from there on.
I was just sitting and listening to this album while not really doing much else, waiting at an airport and all. And I was half-asleep while doing so. Somewhere during the third track I just spaced out entirely and lost awareness of time completely, just taking in the music and feeling like I was floating in the void of space that this album so perfectly portrays. I wasn't brought back to earth until the ambient tracks, but... man, that was just one heck of an experience.
That's not to say the music isn't deserving of any credit otherwise, because it's kind of gorgeously beautiful. Alrakis has a specific sound for their black metal, and while, yes, all four tracks are kind of interchangeable in their spacey sound, I think that's why it works well. They're all different tracks; M20 is probably the spaciest, Gas und Staub the most hypnotic, Sternenstaub the most dissonant, and Verteilung the most desperate (those vocals especially...) and the way they're ordered is probably what makes the journey in itself so effective.
If I had any knocks against this album... hmm. NGC 3242 isn't quite as good as NGC 6611 but both are still wonderful pieces of ambient music. The production could be maaaaybe a touch sharper. The vocals, while effective, aren't my favorite, but at the same time they're not too prevalent (only 3 of the 7 tracks have any at all and even then there's many moments without them). And as previously mentioned the black metal tracks are not especially distinguishable.
But in the end... these are all just nitpicks, honestly. Of all the black metal releases I got this year, this one is easily my favorite, the one I most desperately wanted to get my hands on, the album I paid the most to obtain out of every album I purchased this year. And it was definitely worth it.
Favorite tracks: M20, NGC 6611, Verteilung der Nebel im Raum
Least favorite tracks: Alpha Eri, Gas und Staub zwischen den Sternen
9.25/10
DTF Addendum: Best black metal I've ever heard, and best ambient I've ever heard. Pretty well convinced I'm never going to find a black metal album this good again. Also, yes, the album cover is a totally weird size. It's actually like that.
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Sounds like I could dig it, though I'm not a big fan of ambient. The cover looks a bit train-repellant aswell but I could give this a try :corn
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yeah the image of the artist is pretty hilarious too tbh but the music itself is g r e a t
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Anyhow the album cover of the last one was pretty cool. Obligatory "lolprog" comment but yeah, nice cover
Yes, the album cover for ECO is probably my favorite album cover of all time.
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I had a month or so when I was really into Enslaved. Riitiir was great, their most recent album was good and I also checked out the one before Riitiir which was also good. Then I lost interest a bit, but Riitiir is still a great album for my money.
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#5: Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0194066925_16.jpg)
I like a lot of complex, technical music, but a lot of the time it's the simplest stuff that can hit the hardest. Especially when it's maturely written emo with post-hardcore leanings, apparently, this is not the only really great album I heard in the last year that matches that description. But yeah, this album has a ton of emotional depth, really fantastic hooks, and it doesn't need the most impressive of instrumentation to make it work.
Really, the selling point of this album, more than anything else, is the vocal performance. Moody and powerful, often strained and emotional, sometimes sarcastic and bitter, both pretty and rough at different points. It's just a very dynamic performance all across the album. Lacey is clearly not the greatest singer technically but he sells nearly every word he sings by how into it he sounds.
Of course the performance itself is matched by a ridiculous amount of strong vocal melodies, both on the hooks and basically everywhere else on the album. It'd be redundant to go over every last moment, so how about the highlights of each track. Sowing Season... definitely the back half of the second chorus, really intense stuff, though the final verse comes damn close. Millstone has a great chorus, pretty catchy, and the "whoa oh ohh"s in the background add a nice layer. Jesus is amazing vocally front-to-back, honestly, but I'll say the escalating bridge is slighty above the rest. Degausser, I can't go without mentioning two different moments; when the group vocals hit on the back half of the second verse is just a breathtaking mkment, and the back half of the second chorus is really intense. Limousine is... screw it, everything is absolutely stellar, but my favorite moment has to be the "yeah you were right about me" section right before the long build, though seriously, this song is utterly flawless in basically every regard so it's not "better" than any other moment. You Won't Know is really strong in its more intense verses and choruses once the song explodes into life, Not the Sun has a fantastic chorus but the bridge following the second chorus is easily the highlight of the song, an oddly serious moment in a rather playful track that works wonderfully. Luca's vocal highlight is easily the somber and sinister bridge that ends with an explosive final line. The Arches Bows Have Broken, definitely the chorus, really great chorus for sure. Handcuffs, again the chorus, really potent stuff in its somberness. Whew. That's still a lot, but it's hard to not mention all these great moments, I feel like I've skimmed over a few too many even still.
Of course, Lacey does have some pretty great instrumentation backing his performances. There's a lot of really somber acoustic guitar moments; the intro of Sowing Season, as well as the intro of Limousine, the somber bridge of Luca, and most of Handcuffs. There's a ton of explosive and intense moments, too; the chorus of Sowing Season is massive, as is the chorus of Degausser (especially the back half of the second chorus), Limousine has an explosive moment in its first half and of course that amazing build in its back half, You Won't Know hits like a wall of bricks when it kicks in, Not the Sun's bridge is massive and climactic, and the end of Luca is a screamingly loud moment punctuating a quieter and more sinister song. And there's playful and energetic moments driven by bass and drum grooves; most notably Not the Sun and The Arches Bows Have Broken, the former just having a ton of groove, the latter being easily the most upbeat song on the album, a frantic energy running throughout it that felt a little out of place at first but really grew on me.
Really, the only moments of weakness on this album are when the focus is too much on the instrumentation; neither instrumental track is especially impressive, both feel kind of like filler to be honest. You Won't Know's main guitar line also gets a bit overused throughout the song, and the bridge of that song is a bit ehh but it's still a pretty solid song on the whole. There... really isn't much to say negatively about this album, though; it definitely doesn't overstay its welcome, and there's no outright bad moments here.
I don't talk much about lyrics but feel I should at least mention them here; I like them, in general. Limousine, especially, is just a really mature handling of its subject matter, even more heartbreaking due to being based on real events. Jesus is another particularly touching track on the whole. Not the Sun is really fun for its sarcastic tone, with the really blunt lyrics of the bridge providing a nice contrast. Handcuffs, I really like the sentiment of the chorus especially. You Won't Know is probably the only song that feels a bit too melodramatic but I'll admit I haven't read into most of the lyrics of this album too deeply.
But yes, on the whole; I'd say, go ahead and believe the hype, 'cause really this album deserves it. Not by showing off any technical chops, not by trying to make you pity the band members through any lyrics; just damn good songwriting that sticks in your head and never seems to get old. I've spun this album probably 20+ times and the songs still hit hard and stay fresh, especially of course Limousine, which, for the record, is the best song I heard in 2015. Great album, definitely recommended.
Favorite Tracks: Limousine, Jesus, Degausser, Not the Sun, Handcuffs, Sowing Season, Millstone, The Archers Bows Have Broken
Least Favorite Tracks: Welcome to Bangkok, You Won't Know
9.25/10
DTF Addendum: Oh hey, it's the album with the best song I heard this year on it. Go figure it's up this high. And dang that's a lot of favorite tracks innit. Yeah, the top 5 are all just, really good stuff...
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It is definitely #1 album I discovered in 2015 :hefdaddy
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Yeah this album is awesome. But Welcome to Bangkok is not filler at all :angry:
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yeah they don't put filler on their albums etc it's kinda dull and pointless though imo which is what filler tends to be like
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I used to really love this album but I have to say my interest in revisiting it has gone away with time and if I re-did my top50 albums today, this would not be in it anymore. But still, great album.
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Really loving the two Enslaved albums I downloaded recently (Vertebrae and In Times) to give this band a shot. Will definitely be getting some more albums, starting with RIITIIR by the looks of it :biggrin:
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#4: Cursive - The Ugly Organ
(https://consequenceofsound.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/cursivetheuglyorgan.jpg?w=800)
Man, this album really snuck up on me. I only got this album basically as a fluke. These guys were going to be the third act at a Coheed and TYS show I saw in October, and then the album was there when I went to a CD Warehouse, so I figured I might as well.
Probably the best fluke purchase I've ever made. This album is... probably oversharing in how personal and emotional it is, but that's part of the appeal. This is just an intensely emotionally charged album front-to-back, and it works because the music is so. damn. good. Tightly written tracks with strong hooks and interesting instrumentation. Add emotional depth to that mix and you've got yourself a winner.
What elements of these songs work? Well, one of the most prominent aspects of these songs is the use of dissonance throughout. Some Red Handed Sleight of Hand has an off-kilter organ line running through it, Butcher the Song is entirely about its dissonance and weirdness, A Gentleman Caller has some noisy horns in its first half, and Bloody Murderer has a dissonant main line that actually doesn't work too well; it mostly makes the song feel awkward. In the other cases though, it's used quite well; the organ in Red Handed especially sets the tone well, and Butcher the Song is just a fascinating song because of its bassline.
There's basically two kinds of tracks here: Heavier upbeat tracks and more relaxed ballad tracks. Sometimes you get both at once, especially A Gentleman Caller which is probably the heaviest track on the album until halfway through where it becomes the prettiest. Driftwood: A Fairy Tale also builds up from a ballad track into a pretty intense song by the end, the build of this track is what makes it as good as it is. There's two short interlude tracks, true, and as well Harold Weathervein and Bloody Murderer both stray from this a little, being a bit more... avant-garde and, kind of out of place, not very engaging. It's really these two tracks that hold this album back from a 5-star, I really don't care for either of them, whereas everything else is on a completely different level.
I think one of the strongest points of this album is its lyrics, oddly enough for me. There's a few tracks here that I feel are almost too personal for me to be listening to; Butcher the Song and ESPECIALLY Sierra, which I feel like I should not be any part of, but how personal the music is is what makes it strike with the emotional depth it does have. If the details were vague or the scenarios less personal, I think this would still be a good record, but not as effective as it is now. Other songs of lyrical note are The Recluse, which has some wonderful poetry to it, Driftwood and its puppet anecdote about sex, A Gentleman Caller for its wild mood swings, and Staying Alive for providing a satisfying release to the anger of the rest of the album. Seriously, no better way to end an album this charged than with a long, drawn-out release of tension, I almost wish this track was longer but really it's fine as-is.
Another thing I can definitely say is that every track here is utterly unique, even the ones I don't care for as much. The Recluse and Driftwood are both softer tracks on the whole but sound nothing alike. Harold Weathervein and Bloody Murderer are two different types of awkward; the former is basically just an unfinished demo while the latter is more fleshed out, just sloppy in execution. And the heavier tracks are all distinct; Red Handed in its energy, Art is Hard in its playfulness, Butcher in its bitterness, Gentleman in its chaos, Sierra in its anger. Every song has its place. Even the two short interlude tracks work pretty well, and there's a number of similar moments scattered throughout the rest of the album as well.
There's just so many powerful moments on here, all tightly wrapped in a 40-minute package that is never boring and rarely even frustrating. It's an emotional journey, but one well worth taking over and over, one that leaves me satisfied with every listen. It's not a flawless album, but take away the two awkward tracks that sum up to only 6 minutes in total and it probably would be. Between the quality of this album and seeing these guys live, I'm definitely going to have to look into their other work sometime soon.
Favorite Tracks: Driftwood: A Fairy Tale, A Gentleman Caller, Butcher the Song, Staying Alive, The Recluse
Least Favorite Tracks: Harold Weathervein, Bloody Murderer
9.25/10
DTF Addendum: I will be perpetually disappointed that nobody else has taken to any Cursive songs I've sent in roulettes as much as I have but to be fair it does work better as an album than individual songs. That being said, the individual songs are still fantastic, so...
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I thought I recognized the name of this artist, and I realized that you sent me Driftwood: A Fairy Tale as a bonus song after the Championship. I'm really terrible about listening to the bonus songs people send me, and I need to just take some time and go through them all. But seeing that this album made your top 4 made me go ahead and give this song a couple of listens. I think it's pretty good! I'll have to listen to it a little more to really get a feel for it, but I definitely like the track. Not sure the whole album will be my thing just based on some of your descriptions and the last full minute the track, but I may well give it a shot. This song is definitely a good one that's already sticking in my head.
And I see what you mean about the lyrics being pretty personal, just following along with the words to this one.
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you'd probably like The Recluse a lot tbh
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I don't think you'd like Butcher the Song tho :tup
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I don't think you'd like Butcher the Song tho :tup
Butcher the Song is entirely about its dissonance and weirdness
Yeah, probably not. I'll try to check out a couple of these tomorrow, though.
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Sacul is a loser tho tbh
but yeah don't check out A Gentleman Caller or Butcher the Song tbh, go check out Art is Hard or something
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I mean I'll probably check at least one of the ones that I'm not supposed to like eventually so that I can decide if this is an album I'm going to buy or not.
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#3: The Ocean - Pelagial
(https://pelagic-records.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/The_Ocean_Pelagial_cover.jpg)
Man, this album is the definition of a grower. When I first heard it, I thought it was alright, nothing amazing but I got it on a whim afterwards, and kept listening to it, and... well, practically every time it got better and better, somehow. Post-metal and Prog metal apparently seem like two genres just made for each other and this is probably the most balanced combination of the two I've heard thus far.
I think the strength lies partially in the track progression, getting heavier and darker as the album progresses, but also in the fact that damn near every song is great nor do any songs outshine the others. It's a very tightly-written album that doesn't waste space even when the tracks themselves get more sprawling and deep in the back half of the album.
Also of note, I will be referring to every song by its surname rather than the full name, since it's much easier and much less typing to do so, and it's still easy to tell which song I'm talking about where. Just a note before I get into discussing the songs proper.
The most important thing about the album is its structure, and the flow of the songs. Epipelagic provides a soft, ambient beginning, with Into the Uncanny ranging the full spectrum from beginning to end, starting quiet and atmospheric and eventually building into crushing heaviness. And from there the album escalates, song by song - each of the Bathyalpelagic songs aims to outdo the previous in heaviness and intensity, and it's not until the album comes full circle at Boundless Vasts do we get a bit of a release of tension. From there, the album builds in intensity again to Cognitive Dissonance, which phases out energy and replaces it with a sluggish, crushing heaviness that ends the album out. It's really a ride and because the album structure is so important, it leaves each and every song in a unique place - the heaviness of the first half is a completely different beast from the heaviness of the second half.
Of course, that wouldn't work if the songs themselves weren't great on their own, but... practically every last one would be a huge standout on most other albums - here that's merely the standard. I'll get the weaker tracks out of the way first; Omen of the Deep more exists as a bridge between two tracks than as its own track, and it's okay on its own but doesn't have time to do much of anything. And The Origin of Our Wishes, the final track, fails to live up to the rest of the album - it's somehow too mindlessly heavy without being heavy enough at times; its "verses" especially are lacking a "full" sound that they really would need to work, but it does end pretty well.
One interesting feature of this album is the occasional fantastic chorus; not all songs feature one, but the choruses that do appear are always really powerful and evocative. The Wish in Dreams has a frantic and powerful chorus courtesy of the song's dissonant guitar leads and frantic drumwork. Signals of Anxiety succeeds in raw power and beauty alone, absolutely breathtaking highlight of the track. And Let Them Believe uses its chorus as a climax for the songs two circles of rising and falling intensity, and it's definitely a worthy climax.
Another recurring feature is excellent riffs. The main riff of Into the Uncanny that appears right before the first verse is such a good riff that I'd love to see an entire song based around it, and they knew how good it was since Boundless Vasts later reprises that entire section. Impasses both starts out with a cool riff and the entire second half is based around almost djenty rhythmic riffing that works way better than it has any right to. Let Them Believe has a cool groove of a main riff that's flowing through most every part of the song, and Cognitive Dissonance has a jagged and harsh riff that I've never gotten sick of, followed by a fantastic sludgy and almost doom-metal ending riff. That's to say nothing for the variety of other great riffs scattered throughout the album.
But the real draw that keeps this band distinct in my mind is the emotional presence of the album. Even aside from the aforementioned choruses, this album is moody as all heck. Into the Uncanny is a delicate balance of quieter, prettier and atmospheric moments and intense heavier moments. The middle section of Impasses has probably the best moment of the entire album, a piano line with the rest of the band building behind it; the way the heavier guitar kicks in is downright chilling, especially accompanying the "I don't believe in anything... but I believe in you" vocal delivery. Disequillibrated builds into probably the most frantic moments of the entire disc, bordering on death metal, and the harsh vocals bring the intensity they need to be effective. Boundless Vasts uses the framework of previous tracks only to subvert them, instead building down to a soft and somber atmosphere. Even outside of the chorus, Signals of Anxiety has tons of emotional presence, washed-out and reverb-soaked harsh vocals delivering the verses over the quiet atmosphere of guitar and piano. Let The Believe is just an utter emotional rollercoaster, building up and down, up and down, though its slight flaw is that it doesn't quite reach the emotional climax at the end that it feels like it deserves. And Cognitive Dissonance ends on an absolutely visceral note, a complete breakdown of any hope remaining on the album.
I'm trying to touch on absolutely everything this album has to offer, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention all the little things. The subtleties, the small musical ideas, the things that takes this from being a great album to an amazing one. From the very first track, the primary elements are piano and watery sound samples, but there's some lovely strings and subtle drumwork adding to that atmosphere. As far as Into the Uncanny goes, my favorite "little" thing is the punchy guitar riffs at the end of every bar in the second verse. The Wish in Dreams has a nice little piano interlude at the end between it and Disequillibrated that serves as a nice breather. Boundless Vasts brings back some more lovely strings in its quieter moments, and Signals of Anxiety has nice tiny little synth melody between the second verse and second chorus that I just adore. Let Them Believe is just jam-packed with these tiny things; the intro has a twinkly synth line and some more subtle strings, there's a very electronic synth doing some noodling under the first postchorus, and beyond that there's so many tiny little changes between the first and second loops of the song's structure that I cant even list them all. As far as Cognitive Dissonance goes, there's an atmospheric section in the middle with a stellar bass groove, and the track ends with a gorgeous synth interlude over some more watery samples. It's a nice little breather between the last two tracks.
I'm actually really disappointed that an instrumental version of the album comes bundled with it, I feel like the album loses a lot without the vocals. On one hand, because of the high quality of everything else here, the vocals end up being the weakest element, but the songs feel empty without them, even as dense as they are. I only ever listened to this version once though, and it's not like I'm ever forced to listen to it, so it doesn't factor into the album's final score.
I've completely and utterly failed to keep this as succinct as I'd prefer, but that's because there's just so much to talk about - so many things worth pointing out because this is a dense and fantastic album utterly jam-packed with ideas and raw power, yet smart enough to be layered and subtle at every opportunity it gets. The most recent listen of this album I did during reviewing feels like the best listen I've gotten of this album yet, and I feel like the next one's only going to be even better; it's amazing how much replay value this album has.
Favorite Tracks: Let Them Believe, Into the Uncanny, Impasses, Signals of Anxiety, Cognitive Dissonance, The Wish in Dreams
Least Favorite Tracks: The Origin of Our Wishes, Omen of the Deep
9.5/10
DTF Addendum: This kind of crept up on me, but in a good way. I actually didn't go into this with that high of expectations and BAM there it is, #3 purchase of the year. First one to hit a 5 star rating on this list, too. Yeah. Only wish the ending was better. Also, never listen to the instrumental version ever, there's no point.
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The Ugly Organ hhhh...
ok
I promise I will check something by The Ocean in the upcoming days. It is one of bands Last.fm is recommending to me for a long time.
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Seriously one of the best albums I discovered last year, if not the best.
The thing as a whole was a big grower yeah, though some separate songs clicked with me from the start, like Let Them Believe and Into The Uncanny.
So your top 2 is Maps at #2 and The Apologist at #1 right
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Pelagial was a really good album, even though I consider The Ocean to be a step below Neurosis, Isis and Cult of Luna on the Post Metal scale.
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Pelagial is in fact technically one massive song. Awesome album :)
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Did I send you this one?
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I listened to this twice and found it incredibly boring. It might be a grower but I'm just not gonna invest time in it because nothing really sparked my attention during the first two listens.
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Cursive - The Ugly Organ, sounds like something I would like. Already been listening to Pelegial for a few weeks now thanks to Mikemangioy's roulette. Really good album.
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Did I send you this one?
I sent the instrumental version of a song of Bathyapelagic to someone but I don't remember in which roulette..
Cognitive Dissonance is one of my favourite songs with only growls, I normally don't like those songs but that one is awesome
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I have sent songs from Pelagial before, usually I send Let Them Believe.
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Did I send you this one?
I sent the instrumental version of a song of Bathyapelagic to someone but I don't remember in which roulette..
You sent a song off Anthropocentric to me after the roulette I think, or maybe it was Precambriam, but it wasn't an instrumental. And I ended up enjoying Pelagial the most anyways :lol
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Pelagial was a really good album, even though I consider The Ocean to be a step below Neurosis, Isis and Cult of Luna on the Post Metal scale.
it's a good thing Pelagial is not trying to be anything like standard post-metal then :corn
also yeah it was lordcost who sent them but i'd already listened to the album once before then, tbh :lol
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I didn't mean any offense in that tho, I'd consider those "holy three" to be among my favorite bands (top50 or so at least). The Ocean is a band I was somewhat lukewarm on (some great, some alright stuff) but Pelagial was indeed a really good album, and I can't wait to see where they go from there. I'd say comfortably their best album.
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i just don't think it's a very good comparison is all :lol
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#2: Thank You Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places
(https://evilinkrecords.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/tys_maps_front-FINAL.jpg)
Due to getting this album at the start of last year and thus having had a lot of time to sit on it, this album is gonna end up high inevitably because it's managed to stick on my mind for an entire year. And yeah, it's good. Great. Excellent. Honestly, if I were to point to one single thing this year that really reignited my passion for music, it'd be this album. It's just sitting in such an interesting place. The comparisons to Coheed and Cambria are inevitable since the band is on Claudio Sanchez's record label now (and the version I have is the 2014 rerelease, which I think is superior, better production and mixing at least). You'll also get Mars Volta comparisons considering the presence of trumpet, saxophone, and violin all throughout the album, and the general technical prog-rock mindset of the album. If that sounds good to you, there's probably no point continuing to read this review, honestly, since the songs kind of speak for themselves.
Here's the thing. Aside from the a cappella opener and the instrumental Suspicious Waveforms, these songs all have a lot in common.
First. Strong hooks. Every single track has a killer chorus. If I had to pick the top three... Feed the Horses, My Famed Disappearing Act, Carnival, in that order. The closest to an exception here is Concrete Swan Dive, but the more I linger on its hook, the more effective it seems to get; the track's a weird one in general though. The tracks tend to have a lot of strong vocal moments outside of just their hooks though, of course. The entire bridge of Feed the Horses, the "Step out of Line" bridge of Blood on the Radio, the absolutely STUNNING climax of Absentee (seriously, everything about the song from after the sax solo onward is a contender for best stretch of the album), and pretty much any vocal line from My Famed Disappearing Act. I can't really say there's a bad vocal line anywhere on here though, in all honesty.
Second. Killer instrumentation. I'll even pull Suspicious Waveforms back in, in fact I almost have to as it's the track where all 6 of the band's instrumentalists get a solo. Yes, including the bass and drums. It's honestly a bit overindulgent in the end, but I'll be damned if it isn't still great. The best solos on the album, in my opinion, would have to be... both the violin solo and trumpet/sax unison of Carnival (another contender for best stretch of the entire album), the fantastic and epic guitar solo of My Famed Disappearing Act, and the sax solo of Absentee, which is relatively simple but very soothing.
Even outside of the solos though, the instrumentation is top-notch. There's a lot of small things thrown into the tracks; Blood on the Radio has a cool verse guitar line and a lot of tiny variations throughout the song, Absentee has an absolutely killer riff in its climax, Carnival has too many great moments to name, In the Company of Worms has its shamisen intro and its massive main riff, My Famed Disappearing Act has its noodly guitar intro and outro. And that's just scratching the surface - heck, even several dozen listens of this album in and I'm sure there are small touches I've missed, because this album is just jam-packed with so many little moments that make a great whole.
The flavor on this album, too. Especially prominent in Blood on the Radio, which has a lot of Spanish vibes to it throughout, but there are touches throughout the entire album; the a cappella Prelude, the quiet bridge of Feed the Horses has a kind of jazzy feel to it, Suspicious Waveforms is basically just a pure jazz track, Carnival is just a really fun track in general, and the shamisen intro of In the Company of Worms is so out there and random that it really should work as well as it does. Beyond that, the band's sound as a whole is really unique; Thank You Scientist sounds like themselves and nobody else sounds like them. Maybe they sound a bit like Coheed in their poppier elements, and maybe a bit like The Mars Volta in their proggier elements, but I don't think it's fair to say they "sound" like either of them. Influenced by, maybe, but they are very much their own band.
I can play basically the entire album in my head purely from memory because I have, at this point, absorbed this entire album into my being. It is a part of me that I will never let go and it's a fantastic album that, honestly, towers above its influences. And this is their DEBUT ALBUM. Considering the songs I've heard from them that were written after this album, I'm super stoked to hopefully have a follow-up this year. And seeing them live last year with Coheed and Cursive was a fantastic experience as well.
I might be a little biased, but when an album comes along that's this good and refuses to stop being this good after probably 30-40 listens, with little in the way of weak spots, I can't help but obsess over it. Kudos to you, Thank You Scientist, definitely looking forward to more greatness from you guys.
Favorite Tracks: Carnival, My Famed Disappearing Act, Feed the Horses, Blood on the Radio, In the Company of Worms
Least Favorite Track: Suspicious Waveforms
9.75/10
DTF Addendum: Honestly picking between the top 2 was tough. This album's more consistent and is basically responsible for reigniting my love of music in general, but it hasn't had a significant impact on my musical tastes; heck, I wouldn't say it's had any impact at all. It's definitely the album I listened to the most in 2015, though, I'm absolutely positive of that. Anyways you already know what my #1 is but I'll post it later tonight.
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Good album indeed, though I wouldn't really score this one nearly as high. It's good, but it only took me a couple of listens to have heard enough of it. Tehy certainly do have a unique sound though, I can appreciate that - and My Famed Disappearing Act is probably the best prog-wank song I have heard in quite some time. Nice write-up as well.
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Good album indeed, though I wouldn't really score this one nearly as high.
Pretty much.
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Honestly I LOVE Maps of Non-Existent Places. A really great album and my first great discovery on DTF. I never see any love for A Salesman's Guide to Non-Existence when this album is discussed though. It's probably my favourite track on the album and I love the 1-2 punch of the Intro/SGtN-E!!
Soooooo looking forward to the new album. And hoping to see them when they inevitably tour the UK with Coheed at some point in the future.
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Listening to Pelagial at the moment. I like it so far.
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Pelagial is my favorite album ever.
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well... not mine :lol
tbh it's too early for me to call any of these my favorite albums ever I think but we'll see in a year or two
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I think one of the most important aspects of how much you like something is how it holds up with time. That's why I never get people who always throw the "This is their best album" in the first week of their favorite band's 11th album release. It's not so much how good it is now, but how good it is 50 listens from now, or 5 years from now.. and so on.
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I think one of the most important aspects of how much you like something is how it holds up with time. That's why I never get people who always throw the "This is their best album" in the first week of their favorite band's 11th album release. It's not so much how good it is now, but how good it is 50 listens from now, or 5 years from now.. and so on.
Totally agree. Most of my top albums are ones I've been listening to for years. I can only think of one or two albums I've discovered in the last two years that I'd contemplate putting into my Top 50 Albums. The test of time is the clincher. It's actually why I don't overplay albums that I like too much (unless I can't help it) because it's gutting when you get bored of one of your new favourite albums.
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Yeah agreed 100%.
That being said, I can call The Direction of Last Things the best Intronaut album because I've known all the albums for about the same amount of time :lol
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Indeed.
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Bon Jovi and Whitesnake are having a battle in my head over this current thread subject header
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#1: Dream Theater - The Astonishing
(https://progreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dreamtheatercoverjpg.jpg)
It's literally the best album ever made.
Favorite Tracks: ALL OF THEM
Least Favorite Tracks: NONE OF THEM
8/5 Nuggets
DTF Addendum: In a mysterious time paradox, I somehow got this in 2015 and it blew my mind.
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worst list ever -8/5
edit: dammit i used punctuation how could i
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No matter what, The Astonishing is always the real winner of any list really. Special regards to tracks such as Whispers on the Wind, Begin Again, Astonishing and The Hovering Sojourn.
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No matter what, The Astonishing is always the real winner of any list really. Special regards to tracks such as Whispers on the Wind, Begin Again, Astonishing and The Hovering Sojourn.
You fucking pleb. How dare you not mention A Hymn of Thousand Voices?! The best DT song by far.
No seriously I fucking hate that song.
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Album of the century.
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#1: East of the Wall - The Apologist
(https://www.metalblast.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Apologist.jpg)
This album... basically dominated the last quarter of the year for me. Gave it a listen or two on youtube, was like "this seems pretty cool", bought it, listened to it for a week or two, enjoyed it a fair bit but didn't fall in love with it quite yet. But it stayed on my mind, and eventually I went back and relistened to it... and then listened to it again, and again... and every time it just got better and better.
There's just so much to this album. A brilliant display of technicality without sacrificing songwriting. A variety of styles and sounds while still maintaining a cohesive core sound. A tightness in the songwriting where nothing overstays its welcome nor does any idea feel underdeveloped. A raw intensity balanced out with moments of true beauty. And an absolute fantastic flow between the tracks on the album such that they all stand out on their own yet each transition between tracks feels effortless.
Honestly, it'd be easier to list out all the things on this album that don't work than the things that do. A Functional Tumor is a bit of an underachiever of a track, it'd be a fine song on any other album but here it's definitely lacking the punch of the other tracks. And Nurser of Small Hurts has a guitar tone I don't really care for. I... legitimately can't think of a single other element of this album that I don't absolutely adore at this point.
I'd be here all day if I listed out every last moment on this album that works well, so I'm going to try and keep this succinct by only listing out the best of the best.
First off, the vocals. Both the clean vocals and harsh vocals have a ton of moments. The clean singing throughout is very melodic and generally has a strong amount of emotive presence to it as well; probably my favorite moments are the opening vocals of Naif and the cleans throughout Whiskey Sipper, but the title track comes close. As far as the harsh vocals go, the "Let Go" and "Don't Walk Without" moments of The Apologist absolutely floor me every time, and the harsh vocals at the start of Underachiever are particularly intense as well. Bamberger is really the best post-metal style harsh vocalist I can think of, though, he just nails the style so well.
The guitars. I'd really be here all day if I listed out every single moment. Between the atmospheric, post-rock style clean guitars, the heavy and catchy riffs, and the guitar leads all throughout the album, there's a ton to love. For cleaner moments, special mention of course has to be given to the break in the middle of Linear Failure, especially that guitar solo. The Apologist has a ton of lovely clean work, especially the somber line at the end of the track. As far as riffs go... Naif opens with one heck of a sludgy riff, Linear Failure has two different killer riffs, one in the first half and one in the second half, False Build has a chuggy strummy riff and a sludgier one near the end, Precious Memories has a guitar-driven main motif that rules, The Apologist has one of the best damn riffs I've ever heard, and Underachiever starts out with another great sludgy riff.
And then any guitar part that doesn't really qualify as either atmospheric or a riff... both Running Tab and Horseback Riding have a lot of focus on guitar lines, especially dissonant ones, though they're both quite heavy as well. And Underachiever manages to create a ton of sound and frantic energy using no heavy riffs at all, just really noodly guitars alongside the other instruments.
The bass on this album may be the greatest show-stealer of them all, though. From the very first track, there's an amazing bass groove right before the vocals kick in. False Build has an outright bass lead in its intro, which is always great to hear. The title track has one of the best jagged bass grooves I've ever heard in its intro, as well. And the bass is the primary force behind the strong groove of Running Tab of Sweetness, with another strong bass groove backing Horseback Riding. There's a neat dissonant bassline in Nurser of Small Hurts, and the bass forms the backbone of the chaos of Underachiever, even having a moment to itself without the guitars.
Even aside from its highlights though, the bass is just absolutely essential to how well this album works. It's mixed high, but never overpoweringly so; it provides all the tracks with a very full and heavy sound and the tone on the bass is just incredible, wouldn't even ask for it to be slightly different.
Last but not least are the drums, and Rheam is easily the most talented player of the entire group - which is saying something. Highlights would be basically anything from Linear Failure, the intensity of the drums near the end of Precious Memories, the build at the end of The Apologist, the driving grooves of Running Tab and Horseback Riding, the frantic drumming in the quieter moments of Whiskey Sipper, and the pure chaos of Underachiever. I could point to basically any random moment of the album and find a really cool drum moment, though; never overwhelming, fitting the mood of the music well, and just being technically satisfying.
Of course, it's not like the instruments work their magic separately; the real strength of this album's music is how well they all intertwine. This is ESPECIALLY obvious on the two instrumentals, Running Tab of Sweetness and Horseback Riding in a Bicycle World, as well as how everything comes together for the chaos of Underachiever, but again, I can point to basically any moment of the album and find a great balance of all the different instruments. One thing I neglected to mention are the horns at the end of Underachiever, which just give that climactic moment even more swell.
So yes, this album is technically pleasing on every level, but is it emotionally potent? Heck yes. Maybe not in the "I'm sad" or "I'm happy" way, but damn do these tracks have power. The one track that falls a little flat on me is the track that doesn't have as much emotive presence to it, but it's not devoid of it either. There's somber moments on The Apologist and Whiskey Sipper, and even a triumphant moment at the end of Underachiever. I will say that if you're primarily a "feels" kind of person when it comes to music, then this may not be the strongest album for you but you'll still get a lot out of it regardless.
Every time I listen to this album I'm just taken aback, there's always something new to spot and fall in love with. It's technically pleasing, emotionally raw and powerful, moody as heck, and just one of the most satisfying albums I've ever listened to. Get back to me in a few years and I'll probably be calling it my favorite album of all time. About as close to perfection as I could ever expect anyone to ever get, really.
Favorite Tracks: The Apologist, Underachiever, Whiskey Sipper, Linear Failure, Running Tab of Sweetness, False Build, Horseback Riding in a Bicycle World, Naif, Precious Memories
Least Favorite Tracks: A Functional Tumor, Nurser of Small Hurts
9.75/10
DTF Addendum: Well, duh. SURPRISE. I can totally understand why nobody else has taken to this like I have since this is the kind of album that feels like it appeals specifically to me and my musical tastes but it's still disappointing. Losers.
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My attempt to guess your top 5:
1. East of the Wall - The Apologist
2. Thank you Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places
3. The Ocean - Pelagial
4. Bent Knee - Shiny Eyed Babies
5. Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
4 out of 5, even nailed the order. I want my prize :hat
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you have my RYM page and i'm pretty sure you looked there :corn
anyways
If someone can get like 3 of the top 5 right I'll at least check out an album recommendation on youtube or something I dunno.
i'll listen to it this weekend or something dunno
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I was tempted to include Cursive in the top 5 but it'd have been a bit too obvious :P
Lemme think of something.... maybe some harsh noise...
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it was already pretty obvious
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:'(
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Thank You Scientist>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>SCREAMING EVERY SINGLE THING WITH THE BASS BEING LOUDER THAN THE VOCALIST
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^ I mean yeah.
Glad you have something to like, though, Parama.
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I'm going to send some paramacore in the next round of your roulette, splent, as I will be getting eliminated after
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Thank You Scientist>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>growls over calm sections
Pretty much.
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Yes except screaming at the top of your lungs isn't growling
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screams and growls are pretty different imo, I dislike screams
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I haven't really delved into this band even though they have been on my radar for a while and I heard a few tracks a few years ago, but this album is on my list to check out at some point.
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Underachiever is :2metal:
screams and growls are pretty different imo
Yeah
I don't dislike one or another, it just comes down to the context in which they're used. On this album it seemed odd at first but it has started to grow on me.
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I'm listening to this on the way to work right now and I think it's very good. I don't think I will finish the album before I reach work, as my commute is shorter than the album. I'm currently at the title-track and liking what I hear.
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screams and growls are pretty different imo, I dislike screams
But isn't it screams on this album, not growls? That's certainly what I remember. I also dislike screams.
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y'all are wusses if you dislike screams/growls :yarr
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screams and growls are pretty different imo, I dislike screams
But isn't it screams on this album, not growls? That's certainly what I remember. I also dislike screams.
theyre pretty standard post-metal styled growls
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Oh, okay. I guess I'm just not good at telling the difference between screams and growls. What about Thrice's Fire EP? Are those screams or growls or something else?
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Screams, growls, who cares, why not have both? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md6jGibyd2w#t=3m3s)
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I'm glad that at the very least I'm getting people to listen to this more, yay
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Dunno what album making you listen to, I'm between a hip-hop one and an electronic record *corn intensifies*
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Dunno what album making you listen to, I'm between a hip-hop one and an electronic record *corn intensifies*
Make him listen to a full Nicki Minaj album.
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Nah I want something legit good and outside his comfort zone, so I'll probably go with the hip-hop one :P
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I reserve the right to not finish it if it gets unbearable
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Don't worry, it won't be Death Grips or clipping. :P
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I think you misunderstand how much hip hop does not appeal to me on a very basic level, but :corn
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Well this one has quite an amount of sax and quite much variety, but lemme consult it with my pillow first so I'll tell you tomorrow :P
-10 points on my roulette for using the corn emoticon btw :tup
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Sent a trip-hop album :P
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if they got kanye to front them for their next album, would they be
west of the wall
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Kanye West of the Wall Project