Album Rating: 4.0
Somewhere in the early to mid 2000s "progressive" became a synonym for "unadulterated gigacheese".
The vocals are mindbendingly awful, the riffs sound like a mix between Dream Theater and Slipknot (two bands I am not too fond of) and the 5th track is a contender for the title of "worst prog metal song ever written." The only thing this album got going for it is that some guitar solos are above average, so half a star for that.
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Album Rating: 5.0
Never gets old, but definitely hits harder when I don't listen for a while. It's hard to overstate how monumental this and Uroboros are, actual masterpieces. I still enjoy their new works but they were REALLY onto something in this era especially when they removed a lot of the glossiness and glam of their earlier releases. Ruten no Tou is a fantastic closer and really encapsulates their sound from this time- a good focus on melody but with interesting, more progressive song structures that flowed so naturally. These days I feel like the band feels pressure to make these long progressive Diabolos-adjacent songs on every album, like Kamuy on Phalaris, but they don't reach the same heights and while good, they really pale in comparison to Vinushka and Diabolos which both felt so inspired and purposeful in their compositions.
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