Review Summary: They tried to revive the sound of spiritual machines and instead they created a mediocre sequel of gravity.
4 brillant albums in a row is not an easy task. OLP proved that when you have the right producer, the right members and the right musical direction, you start having an awesome career without any flows.
Then, a stumble happens, Arnold Lanni who produced their first 4 albums including clumsy was replaced by some stupid producer which turns great things into trash named Bob Rock, and the original guitarrist Mike Turner quit the band. From that point, the band went downhills.
Singer Raine Maida gets tired of being asked to return to the sound of spiritual machines and naveed, and the band creates "burn, burn" in his own words "a mature version of Naveed". Yes I heard the album and it doesn't sound like naveed AT ALL.
Well it's time to give the fans what they want. They are asking for a spiritual machines kind of album? well they are going to get that.
Did they achieve it? NO.
Although the songs in this album sounds less "poppy" than the 3 previous albums, the songs still remains mediocre. Unlike spiritual machines in which the songs went fluently from one to another, this album is a forced compilation of songs the band had to put in order to make a whole album based on that music direction. None of the songs caught my attention, sadly, so there's no "strong moments" in the album.
The band was doing it great when they did healthy in paranoid times, even if the producer was still Bob Rock, the album was cohesive and that's the only moment post-spiritual machines that they came closer to what the band really was back in the day.
This album was made as a desperate attempt to try to regain the original fanbase, the band lost from Gravity onwards, maybe some fans of the band will find this album as "a return to the OLP sound", but for me this album is not the case.
So, if you are a newcomer to the band I suggest strongly to focus on their first 4 albums, and stay away from this later period of the band, especially this album.
