Listened to the first two tracks on my commute but will listen to the rest and comment in more detail later. I think you got standard POD results, the high gain tones sound totally fine except on some of the palm mutes where the outdated cab sims don’t hold up. Cleans and mid gain tones are hurt by it more. As you probably know these days there’s lots of affordable alternatives that sound better - VST wise there are a couple of Kazrog sims or the Mercuriall e530 sim that I could happily record an album with for a dirt cheap price, though the former you’d have to pair with some good IRs. Atomic’s products or the HX stomp are probably the most affordable high end modeling sound in a hardware unit - at least for my money.

A fun fact you may or may not already know is that Jens Bogren used a POD on Ghost Reveries, though he later regretted it and buried it in the mix under the rectifier channels.

Thanks for checking it out!

Yeah man, everyone from Paul Ortiz (Chimp Spanner) to Stevic Mackay (Twelve Foot Ninja) to the dudes from VOLA roll (or rolled) with the Pods, so any issues I may have with it are probably 90% my own failings and only about 10% the limitations of the Pod. And, as you pointed out, except for some of the palm muting not coming out the way I wanted it too I'm mostly happy with the results.

The funny thing is that I have a Hughes and Kettner cab simulator that I use in my live rig specifically for those cab reasons, and for some reason the thought of tracking guitars with it didn't even occur to me.

True though most moved on to Axe/Kemper/Helix for a good reason I think. For live anyways. In the studio you don’t need to spend that much though. I still like recording cabs personally, partially because you sometimes get a different performance out of the musician when they feel they’re pushing air through cabs

Most of those albums still hold up pretty well despite the tech improvements since then. One of my bandmembers just got a Helix though, so we'll probably start playing around with it once we start tracking the next batch of tunes.

And yeah, actually being able to record with cabs would be ideal, but I move so much that I've somehow managed to go about ten years now without owning a physical amp. I got the Redbox so that I wouldn't have to rely on house amps for gigs and wouldn't have to lug an amp or head around myself. My jampad has a sweet Fender twin reverb that sounds gnarly as hell even with just the Korg AX5G pedal that I use to practice with, so I'm thinking I might have to invest in one and figure out how to get it to gigs on public transit afterwards.

You don't need cabs these days, but something better than a pod (HD500 im guessing was used here) is going to drastically change the sound. If you can't get a pro sounding guitar tone out of the Helix then ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The benefits of recording cabs are either
1) psychological, which is underrated
2) part of getting a really stylized sound, eg a really filthy buzz saw type DM sound or a really distant atmospheric BM sound for example

I also prefer to mic a Vox AC30/Matchless DC30, some of the sims sound good but for whatever reason never have that same absurdly high end sparkle that I would pick one of those amps for. Probably because most speaker IRs aren’t tailored towards capturing that sound.

You guys will be really happy with the Helix, but will probably want to import external IRs rather than use the stock cabs. The basic reverbs (room/plate/etc) are also legacy ports from the POD line and I probably wouldn’t record with them.

Alright I had a chance to listen to the whole thing. Overall, great debut effort, you guys do a lot of things right. I'm going to be a bit overly critical in my feedback in the same way that I'd want someone to help me focus on where I can improve. I'm going to come at this from the perspective of, ok, we have a pretty good proof of concept EP, how can we take this to the next level for our full length?

Guitars:
- its clear that the main asset of the band is your guitar chops. On the bright side, the songwriting and production showcases this. On the flip side, this project feels very much like a typical guitarist driven project.
- the guitars are mixed way too damn loud. Not only do they eclipse the bass and especially drums ,they even interfere with a lot of the vocal melodies. It's really important to make sure the guitars and vocals occupy their own sonic space in the mix and are able to shine through clearly.
- we talked about your rig already, but it mainly hurts you on the funky portions. They're already kind of minimalist, and they often drop in in a very jarring way after a big riff or chorus. In order to make that work, they've got to sound pristine - both in terms of guitar tone and reverb applied. On the bright side this is not a hard fix for next time.

Rhythm Section:
- you've got to encourage your bandmates to step up, or if they can't, you've got to write them more interesting parts, and also tone down what you're doing a bit to give them some space to play.
- the drums should be adding a ton of power and groove to this type of music, but they're really buried in the mix and feel like an afterthought. Even when there's some interesting fills going on, they're not able to make an impact.
- the basslines, even when they stop following your root notes, rarely add additional harmonic complexity or lay down a big groove
- the biggest opportunity lost here is again on the mellow parts - your guitar parts are often so minimalist in those sections that you could really use some truly funky bass and percussion to elevate those parts to the same level as the heavier parts
- to me the best mainstream example of a well used rhythm section in this genre is Karnivool's Sound Awake. Obviously, that's an expensive production but there are things to learn there. Put some grit on the bass, let it flow independently a bit. Get your drummer to bang the shit out of his kit and give it a balanced position in the mix, and get some higher quality reverb on that snare.

Vocals:
- this is probably the biggest area of room for long term improvement
- there are times where you stay within yourself and things sound good, but you have a tendency to oversing at times on pretty much every track. As you get into the higher registers, it often gets pitchy. it sounds like your larynx isn't fully relaxed, and you're focusing a lot of resonance on your nasal area. Keep working on getting that larynx relaxed and on getting that resonance up to your forehead and you'll be able to project more and sound more powerful.
- relaxing your larynx further will also give you a chance to add more authentic emotion to your voice. if I were in the studio with you guys I would keep pushing you to give me more takes until I really felt something, like on fight it feels like you're just singing the lines, make me hear how much you really want to knock out fascists or whatever
- try multitracking and harmonizing your voice more often for the big moments rather than stretching out of your reach for higher notes
- if you're going to layer on so much reverb on your voice (e.g. Superman Returns) you need to make sure you're investing in a mix engineer that's going to use higher quality and more tasteful reverbs


Composition:
- there are some really cool compositional moments. Intro to andromeda sounds huge. Little guitar interlude in fight is pretty cool. End of Sea and Sky is harmonically interesting and is a great climax to the album.
- I appreciate what you're doing going for a more upbeat vibe, incorporating some 80s stadium rock type influences, and not drowning everything in aeolian and harmonic minor runs. Unfortunately really nailing that 80s stadium rock sound would be pretty hard on a budget, hopefully as we keep getting more affordable tools it'll get easier.
- When I work on a project, I always ask the band, does this part really need to be there? Does it really add something? Would you go to battle to keep it from being cut? Or is it just there as a placeholder transition? There are some areas here that I would have pushed you to rework - the soft transition in Andromeda being the most egregious part, but really the whole second half of that song. Interestingly Andromeda incorporates all of your best elements and all of the ones that need improvement.
- This is a personal preference thing but I prefer not to hit listeners over the head with atypical rhythms, e.g. the verses of superman returns. To me the beauty of working in atypical rhythms is to get listeners grooving and headbanging to some weird rhythms without even realizing it.

Random thoughts:
- are you using the POD for some of these guitar effects? In genral I think its better to add all the effects that are not directly performance dependent in post, unless you have high quality sounding effects.
- Keep DIs of all your guitar tracks so you can reamp them later once you get to the mix phase

Again, just one man's two cents. Overall great effort, but lots of areas where you can step it up to get to the next level.

Find if I cut and paste this over the entirety of my review ;]

Dang, I appreciate you taking the time to listen and type that man. The technical points are definitely well received. :]

I’ve benefited a lot in my life from people giving me feedback so just trying to pay it forward. Hope it’s helpful!

This is really good you should be proud.

You talkin about the EP or the review?

I'ma assume you mean the EP and take the compliment. Thanks Gmork! :D

Put this out exactly a year ago. Thought we'd actually do some touring this year.
The Universe was like, "lol no".