Album Rating: 5.0
Just signed up to give a counterpoint. I fucking love this album. I loved 8, never really got on with Februus, and loved La Partition.
This is the combination of 8 and La Partition I didn't know I needed. I heard the prerelease tracks with a bit of wariness; I didn't really get them, but thought they might fit better into the album as a whole. After all, I never listen to their stuff track-by-track, and barely know the titles - they're a longform composition type of group.
I think it's their best work to date. It's driving, powerful, and like my favorite music, it sounds simple until you try to take it apart - and get lost in a maze of polyrhythms and harmony. It's progressive without being 'wanky' - no second is wasted here, or added in just because a guitarist needed yet another solo. In fact, I don't think there are any solos. There are huge, defining moments - and they quickly slide back under the waves, perhaps to reemerge later in a different form. See the climax in Jester, or in the finale Everyman. This album rewards attention. And yet, it avoids the pitfalls of grindcore, where a great riff can feel wasted on a track that's over as soon as it started.
As with 8, the albums rhythms are set by the driving, constant, shifting bass & guitar lines, which are sliced and glued together by the fantastic drumming. Without knowing more, I feel that the drummer is a key composer in the group, and that the tracks are built on his designs. This is a good moment to mention the sound of this album. Unlike so many - even great! - metal albums, the dynamics in the recording truly breathe like a living thing. (I.e, it's not compressed/limited to shit.) Each piece of drum kit is clear and sharp, without taking away from the powerful main lines of the guitars. Intensity is increased and decreased by degrees; in some prog metal, I feel the progression is limited to 'soft/loud' and isn't given as much compositional thought.
This is a modern classical composition, in a metal idiom. I feel the themes are of creation and change, of the inner world of the self. When they sing, "I want to take in the impossible", I hear such longing, a drive to create the otherworldly, beautiful and terrible.
I can tell already this will be one of my favorite albums for a long time. I'm sorry it's not beautiful to all, but that's how it is with art! I'm grateful to be around for it and that it speaks to me so well.
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