Wasn't there a thread already? Hm...maybe not, either way it's been ages. I absolutely love the band and I loved what they did with Language's Rediscovered, I think that was the inspiration for creating an album without any growls and with a whole lot more consistent melody than usual. That said, I'm not nearly as in love with this album as I am with previous iterations. I really, really like it, but there's a couple songs that are kind of meh to me, those being Godspeed (which is borderline a skip for me) and while the intro to the album, Monochrome (Passive) is nice, I really miss those ups and downs and left fielders that the harshness of the more caustic side of the band brought that balanced out those quiet, melodic moments.
I really do like the album a whole heaping ton, but I wouldn't say I love it yet. Right off the bat for the previous albums I could say I was in love with them immediately. There's songs on Clairvoyant that almost make me feel that way but it's borderline. Basically, I'm hoping that this was a one off and/or an exploration for them. I don't mind not having growls but god damn it, I cannot take another massive paradigm shift from a band that was once in my mind perfectly balanced and then went the other direction. Opeth being the glaring and now dead-horse-beaten example.
Great album, but these guys do the beautiful chaos so absolutely perfect that it'd be a real shame to have them do the pure prog and melody shtick just..."really well" instead of the brilliance it was. These guys scratched a VERY specific itch for my musical mind and this album really did not do that, however much I like it and will probably continue to like it even more, it just doesn't do that because it's a totally different beast.