edge of sanity: this album puts me in a frustrating place. there are two main problems; 1. the production quality is just not sufficient for the style 2. there aren't enough good riffs. 2 may be a product of 1 though because good riffs can sound meh with bad production. anyways. the melodic work on this album is solid, the story is pretty good actually, and the song feels kind of like a jumbled string of ideas but it's held together by its reuse of probably at least half of its ideas over the course of the album. and it's only 40 minutes so there's no time to get tired of it. i just wish i liked it more & i feel like the production is the biggest culprit of why i don't.
hacride: i do get why this took me a while to warm up to because the structure of this album is honestly kind of idiotic. who decided that the entire front half of the album should be frontloaded with an almost nonstop triplet groove, and then the back half only have one song's worth of it while the rest of it is straightforward 4/4? it can leave the first half of the album feeling really samey. which is a shame because each and every song on its own is absolutely killer and when i'm able to pick out the different tracks the sameyness doesn't really matter. but it makes this a really tough album to enter into. i'm glad i stuck with it though. awakening is a bloody monster of a song & the opener and closer are not far behind. and phenomenon is a great interlude track. and the three shorter triplet groove tracks all have a fair number of cool moments as well. the vox are a bit meh but they don't really take away from the album & i don't mind them. there's a ton of killer riffs, every song has a few. there's even a decent amount of atmospheric moments (especially on the opener and closer) and just a great sense of creativity with the songwriting, each song does feel necessary. i'm writing a lot about this one because i genuinely love it tbh but it's also super frustrating
pain of salvation: yeah, it's no tpe 1 or remedy lane, but it's superior to their last few efforts. really the album could've been just on a tuesday, full throttle trible, if this is the end, and the passing light of day and i would've been satisfied. the shorter tracks i don't mind, a few of them i quite like (meaningless grew on me a lot, especially) but a few of them are hard misses for me. tongue of god is just generic & kind of laaaame in an "early 2000's alt-metal" way, and aside from the guitar solo, angels of broken things just doesn't work; that chorus is awful. silent gold is okay but doesn't leave a huge impact with me, reasons i liked at first but it toes a dangerous line and repeated listens made it sour on me a little. and the taming of a beast is... fine. s'alright. but yeah, longer stuff here is all great, though don't think i didn't notice that the closer is just an extended version of if this is the end, basically. even has the same riff at one point and both have an ending theme reprise as well. weird as heck choice.