I thought there’d be a topic by now! I thought there’d be one minutes after it’s release.
Some quick thoughts:
The good:
I think this is James’ best performance of the 3 songs so far. His vocal melodies are more interesting and dynamic than the other songs.
The main riff is cool, and I think Myung sounds really good. Also digging JP’s solo - reminds me a ton of the solo in “Forsaken”. Relatively short and to the point, but nice. I also like how they nixed any JR solo for a song like this.
I really enjoy the verses. I like that build up/break down (no pun intended) kind of arrangement
The bad:
As mentioned the riff is cool, but it’s also nu-metal sounding. Every time I hear the intro, I think... Ooo - WAH- AH - AH -AH!
The song is incredibly safe. This isn’t the worst quality, as Forsaken was safe too and I love that song. But a tiny bit more DT flavor would have been nice.
I really don’t like the robotic effect on the word “Paralyzed”. I get that the song is about AI/robots and the effect makes this key word stand out. But I wish their engineer would pick some better effects as I didn’t like the chorus effect on LaBrie in UA either.
Finally, I just don’t feel like this song will age well. When stacking it up against their incredible catalog, I probably won’t see much of a reason to return to it often. Hope I’m wrong though.
Overall, decent song. It’s probably the definition of a 7/10.