The quality of the youtube link is basically unlistenably bad... please tell me that its just the quality of the link and not actually the mix...
The file has had two big hits - 1) radio show rip and then 2) Youtube , so I wouldn't read much into it. I think the guitar sound is a bit too muddy but apart from that I won't comment on the sound.
As far as the song goes , my expectations just soared based on that song,. If that is one of the lesser tracks then this is going to be one of those rare things - a concept album that I love. I couldn't understand half the lyrics , so no real spoilers there for me either.
My main gripe with concept albums is that in all but the best of the best , I feel like the lyrics are shoe-horned into the music ..............like "these are the words and they are going to be used because they're essential to the story , even though I can't quite get the music to sound as good as it might otherwise". I like that better than just about anything on SFAM - main reason being that the song stands up on its own for me. I want to be able to listen to most of the songs on a concept individually and am not a fan of the "needs to be listened to as a whole" thing.
Count me much more pumped for this release than before - if DT can get me to like a sci-fi/fantasy cheesy concept album then they've crossed the final frontier .