it's certainly not as bad as the rest of their stuff considering they dropped the whole nature-worship-contrived-agalloch thing for good, and it certainly isn't anywhere near as excruciating as the last album, but the fact is that it's still as crude as it is dreary. the album is pretty gimmicky and there's just about no subtlety in the execution at all and really instead of a mess we have a monotonous and samey experience. i can see fans of woods of ypres eating this up, but it's definitely not for me. shame we'll never be able to see if they would have improved.
