God Of The Sun - Killer opening track. It's got a great swaggery groove to it while not letting up in the slightest in terms of heaviness. I will say that the section from 7-9 minutes didn't need to be there at all (& this is coming from someone who usually enjoys those sorts of sections), though maybe it'll become more natural with more listens. I do however, like the sheer epicness of the song, & while part of that may be due to its length, I think it has an overall good sense of pacing minus that section, & by the time the final chorus hits, it has a million times more impact than the first one (which seemed underwhelming at first, but I quickly "got" it later on). Apart from that, I enjoy the mystical-sounding intro (for lack of a better term) & how it has slight reincarnations in later parts of the song, which adds a bit of variety to it. Overall a solid (although shaky at times) listen & a good starting point for the album.
Coming Home - Like I said the first time, I like this track way more than people gave it credit for. Time has passed & I think it's only gotten better with age. That riff is just so powerful & the song's groove is immense. Because of that, I feel like it (again) has a good sense of pace, probably better than God Of The Sun due to it being more direct. Another thing I like is how the chorus, instead of building up, it instead cuts back to basics just to emphasise how solid that riff is. Then, of course, there's the solo, in which Ron's guitar tone really makes this work. I don't really know how to put it, but to a certain extent it's light & airy with just the right amount of power to have it stick out. I think it also works really well with Derek's keyboard tone & together they truly make that section an experience. So yeah, I still really love this song. At the moment I'm finding it a little bit better than God Of The Sun, though maybe that's just because I'm more familiar with this one. I don't know, let's see.
Signs Of The Time - Okay, maybe I regret what I said about Ron's guitar being light & airy. That intro scared the shit out of me.
Needless to say, this is where the heaviness of the album really starts to be emphasised, but I feel like that effort's a little misplaced on this track. I don't really care for the main riff too much or the heavy guitar tone or the brooding metal lyrics, but I feel where the song really shines is in the melodic elements. That chorus is fantastic & once again, when given some dynamics, Ron's soloing is top-notch. I just wish they placed a little more emphasis on those elements because the heavy elements on this track don't have nearly as much to offer. While Coming Home was a little bit of a grower for me, I feel like this song works better as a single. It especially doesn't work as well after two majorly groove-laden tracks. I don't hate this song (hell, I even said I liked it when it came out), but what majorly strikes me about it is that it's just okay & could've been better. That, & from an album's perspective, my interest is starting to wane a little bit. Let's see what's next.
Labyrinth - Now this is what I'm talking about. A good variety of all different types of sections interlaced with each other & helping each other to grow. As the second epic from the album, I definitely get that "epic" vibe from this a lot more than I do from God Of The Sun. While both songs have offshoot sections & vary greatly from their source material, I feel like Labyrinth does a lot better of a job at conveying its changes without losing any impact, & I feel like a big part of that is in MP's drumming. While it hasn't particularly stuck out to me on the last three songs, it does such a great job on this song at holding everything together when realistically it should all be going to chaos. One more thing, I love that guitar solo, it's just so great at building up from a starting point to a satisfying climax, & the ending to that solo is the true epicness I was expecting from this song, & it did not disappoint in the slightest. Great song, best one so far. Now we'll just have to see how they follow this up.
Alive - A ballad? Have to admit, not what I was expecting at this point in the album, but I'll take it regardless. I feel like this songs sets up a pretty great atmosphere in its opening sections & the first verse sets up quite a bit of potential. While the chorus is a little generic, it's certainly nothing terrible, but then after that comes the riff & that's where my MAJOR problem with the song starts. Every time this song changes sections, the momentum it's gained from its previous sections is completely lost & the song comes to a screeching halt. Like, that heavy riff comes in right after the chorus with no introduction & after it happens it just goes into the second verse like nothing ever happened. & this is an issue that unfortunately extends into the solo too. I do look the quiet & atmospheric solo sections & all, but at this point in the album, you've gotta wonder if they're only doing this because they don't have any other ideas because it doesn't work for the song whatsoever, nor is it that impressive seeing as the rest of it isn't even that loud by comparison. I guess what I'm saying is, this song had a lot of potential to be great, but it kills its own mood several times within the transitions & it just makes it extremely difficult for it to be immersive (like these types of tracks generally are). Overall, it's a pretty big disappointment, let's see what's next.
Lost In Oblivion - Well, it's certainly heavy, but that's about all I can say about it. If you enjoy songs that are brutally heavy beyond any reasonable measure, then go ahead, this is right up your alley, but other than that, you can obviously tell that this is it's only real focus. Not that there's anything wrong with that - after all, a brutally heavy song can be fun as hell to listen to if you're in the right mood, but this doesn't quite reach out to me like let's just say Avenged Sevenfold's 'God Hates Us' does for example. These types of songs do tend to grow on me, so maybe my opinion will change, but as of right now, it's just "I understand what it's trying to do & I can see myself enjoying it sometime else, but it doesn't do much for me now". The only other thing I have to mention is that I can't be the only one who notices structural similarities to Signs Of The Time, right? Okay, let's move on.
Figaro's Whore - Oh really Derek, you're all about the feel & #nogadgetsfakery? I find that hard to believe when this song is basically "let's play 10000 notes per second that are only vaguely in key & don't contribute any rhythmic or melodic quality whatsoever". Delet this.
Divine Addiction - This is a nice little hard-rock track. It's influence from Deep Purple's 'Perfect Strangers' is pretty obvious, but I don't think that's necessarily an issue. This song just has a nice sense of power to it, especially in the outro. The verses & chorus come & go & it's all very fast-paced with quick buildups. & I think this is necessary because of how rhythmically oriented the song is. The pulse is pretty much tangible & you feel it with every beat of this song as it progresses. While there may not be an ultra-stellar section or solo that really sticks out, this track works well as a coherent whole, & as a homage to classic hard rock. It works well for what it tries to do, but that isn't exactly the most ambitious thing in the world is what I'm trying to say. Still an enjoyable listen though & a good change of pace from the disappointment of the past three tracks. Now let's just see if they can end it well.
Opus Maximus - Interesting ending for this album. This final track has the band take a daring experiment to actually construct a progressive metal song. & that it does. The whole song is very brooding (or at least it begins that way) & has a lot of variety between groove-oriented parts, solo-oriented parts & metal-oriented parts. I will say however that the onslaught of new sections can get pretty overwhelming & there's not a whole lot sticking it together. That said, it forces you to be fully engaged with it until the end due to it's sheer intensity, & for once on this album, the heaviness doesn't come off as forced, but instead as legitimately dark & threatening, especially in the intro. & the bassline-driven section has a ton of groove to it, which again, gives the song more variety. That said, a lot of sections just kind of come up out of nowhere, especially in the 3-minute mark, & I will admit that near the end I was about ready for the song to be over. Nonetheless, it did prove to be an interesting ending to the album & I fully expect this song to majorly grow on me once I get my head around how it's structured. It's just a little different & strange is all, but definitely not bad.
Verdict - This album was... disappointing. While it definitely had its moments & took influence from many different sources, the end result suffered from poor flow, unnecessary sections, some shallow songwriting choices, & nearing the end of the album, most of the songs started to bleed together for me. I will stand by my opinion that the highs on this album are great achievements that shouldn't go unnoticed, but with all that said, I wish they'd constructed a better album experience rather that a mixed bag of songs. While it's not bad by any means, & if someone's into metal, I'd suggest they'd at least check it out, but just be prepared for a shaky ride. Again, it's not terrible or anything, but it's far below what I expect from these musicians, what I expected from the hype surrounding it, & my own expectations from the singles. I defended them until this point, but they haven't made an album that's worth defending here.
5/10
Ranking:#1. Labyrinth
#2. Opus Maximus
#3. Coming Home
#4. God Of The Sun
#5. Divine Addiction
#6. Signs Of The Time
#7. Lost In Oblivion
#8. Alive
#9. Figaro's Whore
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Topic: Sons of Apollo (feat. Portnoy & Sherinian) (Read 468154 times)