My way of knowing how good a post rock album is, is the amount of time it takes me to go to sleep, since it's the only genre of music I can use to sleep when I'm agitated at night, or don't feel like sleeping to the sound of growls, or Tom Waits rambling in my head with no rhythmic pattern at all. I tried to use this album to sleep for three nights, and for the most part, I fell asleep in key moments. "A sentinel's Eyes" has a good managing of colors, paints interesting images here or there, and has a good "waveform" in terms of building/crescendos/diminishing/endings. Nonetheless, the necessity of making 30-minute tracks gave this album an evident amount of "filler" moments.
I like how it resolves in sections, and how it drags on at times, but sometimes (particular sections, for the most part) just drag on unnecessarily turning this album into an uncomfortable succession of good moments going bad for lack of clear paths to walk towards.
The tension is well managed, the moments of sheer beauty are there, but this screams some other for of instrumentation, since guitar is just not enough at times. This really needs a keyboard, a bass, something to add up to the sections. Even a fiddle would suffice.
All in all, This is a great album, doesn't lack heart or passion. It's only problem is, I couldn't sleep two nights because of it.
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