Boring, boring, boring - just listen to Deftones or Neurosis
Really, any of these songs are just slower versions of Defontes b-sides. There are a lot of times I don't like Chino's vocals, but man, these shouty emotionless hardcore barks do nothing to add to the music. They're not melodic, not angry, not brutal, nor percussive. They're just kind of there to add to the distortion, I guess, but shouty vocals always sound inadequate to me.
Then, there's songs like And With Her Came The Birds. Most people who enjoy this album must find this to be beautiful and melancholy, but the twangy, dare I say country, nature of the song tends to annoyance and boredom. Bands like Stabbing Westward could do this sort of slow melancholy rock well, but Cult of Luna manages to just drag on and on for nearly 6 minutes with this.
The closing tune Dark City, Dead Man, could have been great if condensed down to about 5 minutes. I mean really, the last 7 or so minutes of the song are just one, really extended movement based off of one very basic riff. I think they wanted really, really badly to have a doomy, sludgy epic akin to Aeon by Neurosis. It totally lacks the depth, the melancholy, and the impact of Aeon, and just sort of drags on.
Really, this seems like simply an inferior mix of Deftones and Neurosis. Maybe if this album had come out 10 years earlier, it would be a more notable release. Or maybe if you're on drugs, this would be more notable. To my ears, it's really dull and overdone, offering little new to the genre and not executing particularly well on sludgy/doom/post stuff a'la Neurosis, who they heavily borrow ideas from. RYM has some really strange rating habits - I can't for the life of me figure out why this is so highly rated.
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Album Rating: 4.5
I listen to this when I wanna hear Neurosis and Deftones at the same time, usually because I can’t decide between them… what I used to do was play an album by each band simultaneously, but my current set-up doesn’t allow for this so now I’ve resorted to Cult of Luna who are basically the same thing anyway, just not as good.
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