Album Rating: 3.5

Thanks ;) I love Tellurian, but Lotus and Lykaia are my favorites, especially the latter.

Album Rating: 3.5

One thing that I feel about this is that the songs are pretty much in order from best to worst. Makes the second half a very tedious slog, which makes me sad, because I know Soen can do much better than this.

Album Rating: 3.5

Btw good review mate, more or less what I was thinking about the album ;) and yeah Lotus and Lykaia are top-notch but Tellurian is also there for me, maybe because I discovered the band with Tellurian and I have more attach to it, maybe just because I love the three, tbh I can't put one above the other.

Album Rating: 3.5

Thanks. I hear you, the emotional connection we have with an album is something we take to the grave.

Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off

My feel is that Lotus is when their writing started being a bit more formulaic, but also where their sound started to detach a bit more from Opeth/Tool.

Album Rating: 3.5

I have always seen Lykaia as something with a personality of its own, but I understand what you're saying.

Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off

"I have always seen Lykaia as something with a personality of its own"

Oh but it is, and it is def my fave one.

Album Rating: 3.0

I really don't know how I feel about this. As I was driving to work this morning I started relistening to it, and (while this isn't inherently a bad thing) I noticed that this flies closer to alternative/radio/Christian metal than prog or any of the band's other descriptors.

Heard this and the previous two, and they've all been rock solid

Album Rating: 3.5

These guys are the swedish version of nickelback....this album anyway

You mean solid as Iraq?

"My feel is that Lotus is when their writing started being a bit more formulaic, but also where their sound started to detach a bit more from Opeth/Tool."

100% agree with this. Still a solid album.

Album Rating: 3.5

Their first 4 albums are similar in style but very distinct, while this album doesn't differentiate itself much from Lotus.

Album Rating: 2.5

To the comments on the production on the record...I'm pretty sure that it's mostly the mix/master that are what give it its more polished sound relative to past records. They recorded most of it at the same studio as the previous records, but opted for a more mainstream rock mix engineer to give it that arena hard rock sound (the mixing/mastering engineer credited on this album is also credited on Five Finger Death Punch, Skillet, Theory of a Deadman, and In This Moment albums). So that explains that super unrealistically huge snare sound that those bands go for being present here as well. I think in general that sound is achieved more by layering stupidly huge samples in in the mix rather than any way the record is produced/recorded prior to the mix, in most cases, and would be my best guess here given who the mix engineer is.

Album Rating: 3.5

@walrustusk Christian metal? Where did this similarity come from?

Album Rating: 3.5

Cheers secretstache,

The problem is definitely in the mix/mastering which made it sound more plastic and less intimate. The snare drum is the most obvious example for me.

Album Rating: 2.5

I would guess that it was an intentional choice by the band. I think if you've been recording multiple albums spanning over a decade, it's easy to have that curiosity/dream of "what would we sound like if our record was mixed/mastered by these top dudes in rock...how massive will we sound cranked through the car speakers compared to the Five Finger Death Punch records?" It's kinda like a baseball player who was already awesome without steroids but wants to see if they can hit more home runs than the dudes who are taking them and leading the league; or the porn star who's already a hottie, but wants to see how rockstar they'd be with implants (or by taking extenze if it's a dude).



I fear that I've derailed this conversation from music a bit with my analogies, but there is that very human aspect of just wanting to know how you'd stack up in the arena if you gave yourself the same edges as your "competition," so to speak. And unfortunately in doing so, you can lose the purity and beauty of who/what you are to the people who deeply admired you for that and already saw you as special in part BECAUSE you eschewed those temptations to sell out in those ways.



I also think that Soen wrote a bit more of a rock record here, and wanted to give it that "expensive" rock treatment, which does help it stand out as a different record in their discography.



And as has already been stated in earlier comments, Cody's guitar solos/leads are as fantastic as ever. A modern day David Gilmour, that lad is.

Album Rating: 3.0

"@walrustusk Christian metal? Where did this similarity come from?"



I mean there's a lot of religious imagery on this album but also it just sort of reminds me of when I was listening to Skillet back in the day. Maybe radio-metal is a better descriptor.

Album Rating: 3.5

I'm asking simply because they're so anti-religious that it sounded off ;) But with all the ''radio-metal'' comments flying around I'm here wondering what kind of radio stations yall have, because here radio metal is Scorpions.

Album Rating: 3.0

Coming out of Denver is KBPI which is a collection of like.. Seether, Foo Fighters, Five Finger Death Punch, Pop Evil, The Pretty Reckless, and In This Moment... obviously mixed in with classics.