Album Rating: 4.5

@wizard, i have like 7 years of experience ranking artists and making year end lists and can definitely tell when a record will go the distance. this probably would have beaten out gorguts for me last year.

this sounds a lot better on headphones than it does in my car

well the problem with releasing an album that's produced like this means that the average listener will think it's thin, hollow, and not loud enough. the loudness war didnt come out of vacuum, it is a response to the common mode of listening becoming ipods and stock earbuds. that's why music is brick walled, so it sounds as loud as possible on shitty equipment. heres a direct quote from this thread:

Some really good songs here, but i dunno if it was the version I heard, but the production really sounded weak.

what kind of gear do you have hyp? this sounded kinda shitty in my car but a lot better on my ath-m50s

beyerdynamic dt-990's running through a fiio e17 amp/DAC combo.

those ath-m50's would definately do the job for this album, this are pretty good phones, but this thing just sound fucking massive on open backs

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

I actually really like muddy, throwback production on death metal. I find most of the new slick stuff

rather unlistenable (especially bands like Origin). My big problem has more to do with how the vocals

sit over the tracks instead of blending into them, which is a major peeve of mine, and also how the

vocals have way too much reverb on them for how the rest of music that surrounds them sounds (like

last year's Power Trip record) which draws even more attention to the bizarre mixing job.

which is a very valid criticism but i love where the vocals sit and how theyre produced, so again it all just comes down to personal taste

actually i was thinking the other day, the reason i love these high pitched screech-style vocals, especially in death metal, is probably due to the fact that from 7th grade to 9th grade i listened to cradle of filth and black metal almost exclusively haha

Yeah, what Matt said about brickwalling. It's kind of "eh" that the metal scene that supposedly defies the "mainstream" standards had to jump on that bandwagon. Especially since it's even more of a drain on your ears than in pop.
Also, the whole earphone thing with brickwalling is kind of ironic because I notice it even worse with them. I can't listen to heavily brickwalled stuff on earphones because it just makes me feel like my ears are gonna explode. (I remember trying to listen to that one Misery Index album a few years ago and I just couldn't)

Also, this albums definitely brings the nostalgia - reminds me a lot of when I was introduced to metal with a lot of 90s and local scene stuff. The style is certainly somewhat "unusual". Not sure how I like this though since I'm rarely in the mood for that kind of stuff nowadays - it does seem quite promising in general though. The production is not an issue for me though.

very interesting stuff.

that setup is expensive hyp but i guess you get what you pay for. gonna invest in some really nice headphones one day soon. can afford it, its just kind of hard to justify the purchase. plus theres so many options out there.

Album Rating: 4.5

Yeah I really, really need to save up like $300 to invest in good headphones and an amp.

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

I've never been much of a headphones person outside of recording/mixing purposes. I guess that's more because I don't have to worry about volume and noise where I'm at. I have some Klipsch floor speakers that I absolutely adore.

i have some klipsh laptop speakers that are actually pretty great. much better than your standard logitech fare. i'm sure those floor speakers are on another level though

Also, this sound absolutely fine on my 5.1. Teufel set and I have no fancy other equipment.

Album Rating: 4.0

Sometimes I wish they'd hold riffs a little longer. There's a massive one in Beyond Life's Sealed abode that I want to last forever.

yeah i hear ya, but thats why towards a dark sky is my fav on this, because they knew that one riff was unreal good and just repeated it a lot, which im so glad they did

Album Rating: 4.0

for sure

my LP came in!

it sounds so good on my turntable

Album Rating: 4.5

@wizard, i have like 7 years of experience ranking artists and making year end lists and can definitely tell when a record will go the distance. this probably would have beaten out gorguts for me last year.



Fair enough and I know you're an experienced music listener : ). I will admit though that sometimes I adore an album after a few listens but when it comes time at year end, it doesn't quite keep it's appeal.

Gonna put this on my phone today and see whether I'll notice a big difference in sound between that and my speakers.

Album Rating: 4.5

Not just blasts and trems wow 3/5