this album is... uhh. for one it feels really incohesive. the first four tracks alone, we get: a standard prog rock song, an adrenaline mob b-side, a funk rock track, and a ballad.
and the general sound of the album... is very pleasant, very unchallenging.
which i just don't care for. it doesn't feel like they're pushing any boundaries anywhere, just making music that fits the mold of the genre they're in. or whatever genre they're trying to play. it changes.
the constant here is that this is all very poppy and straightforward, though. cosmic symphony already gave me that vibe on its own, it's basically a poppy prog rock song followed by a singer-songwriter ballad (which is to say it's two songs on its own) but pretty much all the other tracks fit that mold. sure they show off a bit but the songs feel very basic and underwritten.
listening to king crimson's red has really made me appreciate how challenging and off-kilter they were for the time, and that album is still kind of its own thing even by today's standards. it definitely pushed the genre forward though. that's just what this album is missing. any reason to exist.
of course, i only listened to this once, but it made me think a lot despite being very unmemorable