A Farewell to Kings is in the bag. And...I actually really liked it. This was a very strange album to me. I have a lot of thoughts right now and I hope I can get to all of them. First, let me just say that i definitely feel like this is one of those albums that can definitely get better with time. This is one that I will 100% have to dig deeper into and give some time to grow. My first impressions right now is that there was not one weak moment on it...but I don’t think there was anything outstanding either. It was all...very solid.
They seem to have gotten back some of that energy that they haven’t really had since Caress of Steel. This doesn’t feel like a band playing it safe. This feels like a band that is very comfortable on its own skin. It knows what it is, it knows what its target audience is, and its confident in its approach. However, that isn’t to say it feels totally disconnected from 2112. I think there is definitely some songwriting elements that got taken from that album, but I also think they borrowed a lot from Fly By Night and Caress of Steel. Using elements from all their previous albums they managed to create a much more focused, matured sound. They’ve already figured out the kinks, and now here they are writing an album that in some ways might be their best yet. I can hear it...I hear the greatness in there. But I’m just not sure if the songs themselves hold up to me as much as some of the other albums. Let’s go track by track.
Opening up the album is the title track, and this might be my favorite song on the album. It’s great stuff. Loved it.
After that we had Xanadu, and I really liked this song. I think it’s gonna take me some more listens to fully appreciate it, but from a first listen, I enjoyed it. I wasn’t blown away but it, but this song gets a thumbs up from me.
Then we got Closer to the Heart. Of course I know this one like the back of my hand already. Truthfully, I think it’s one of their weaker hits. I always loved playing this on the Expert drums in Rock Band lol because it was quick and fun to play and had some great fills, but wasnt really that hard. Listening to the song on its own...it’s decent, but like I said, I think it’s one of their weaker hits.
Then we got Cinderella Man. I liked this song, it had some pretty neat sections. Not much to say here but I liked it.
Madrigal might be the weakest song on the album. It’s not bad, it’s still alright, but it was kinda like background music to me.
The final song, Cygnus X-1, is by far the most interesting song on the album to me. That was quite a right. At the moment I feel like I’m 50/50 with it, leaning a bit more towards the positive side than the negative. I definitely liked it, there were some awesome sections in there, but it didn’t feel all that cohesive to me. This is definitely one I need to check out over a longer period of time to let it fully sink in. It was definitely weird, and I don’t know how to fully feel about it yet, but overall I’d say I liked it. It was kinda frustrating because a certain riff or a certain section would kick in and I’d be like “hell yeah this is interesting, I like this”, but it wouldn’t last very long. This song seemed to be in a hurry to get to the next section all the time, which was kind of a shame because like I said, I did like some of the sections quite a bit. Overall, it was good. Solid. But definitely one I’m gonna have to come back to.
Overall, this album was a solid listen. I think it might be their most confident, focused work yet, which may translate to strongest, so I fully understand if people love this one. And who knows, I may grow to love it, but first impressions...i enjoyed it. It’s a marked improvement over 2112 for sure though.
As for where it ranks? It’s definitely not cracking the top two for me, but...I’m struggling with whether to put it above or below their debut. See, the thing is, Working Man is so f-ing good, that song ALONE is hard to beat. Take out that song and “A Farewell to Kings” definitely beats it out. But...idk, does Working Man alone beat that entire album? Hmmm.
You know what, I’m gonna give the SLIGHT edge to AFTK. I don’t think it’s fair to let one song from an album beat another album full of solid songs. AFTK is much more focused and consistent, it’s clearly the better work. So yeah...AFTK gets 3rd place right now. Sorry, you’re not beating the trilogy of Bastille Day, Lakeside Park and The Necromancer.
One last thing I wanna mention. I do kinda miss that raw energetic sound they had on Fly By Night and Caress of Steel. There was a raw grittiness there that kinda got lost after those albums. I think AFTK is closer to that sound than 2112 was, but I don’t think they’ve quite gotten back to that. It’ll be interesting to see how the band evolves going forward.