we 100% had a lively scene back in the day with all the Boomtown and adjacent bands. even without that much genre similarity you had heaps of these artists crossing over like Flynn from Cog guesting on a Butterfly Effect song, then Clint was on an Ezekiel Ox EP, Mammal doing a remix for Dead Letter Circus etc.

back in the day we used to go the Factory or the Metro and see a sick band from that scene almost every other week and never saw the same band twice. can't speak much for how it is nowadays, most of those bands are gone although I just saw Closure in Moscow last week and they still rip it live. but I would agree that Vool kind of hit the sweet spot between that little clique and getting wider exposure with prog fans when Sound Awake dropped. probably helped that Ian got huge with Birds and so there are more people passively aware of Karnivool just by association, also helps that Sound Awake was just that fucking good man

After spinning it again yesterday I went back to Asymmetry and did it click hard. Right now it might be my favourite Karnivool. The Refusal goes hard. Love the snare sound on it. And Alpha Omega is top 3 Karnivool.

Definitely agree this latest one is playing it safe and closer in sound to Sound Awake. Still very enjoyable.

Album Rating: 3.5

It is also be remarked that when I speak (or I take it for that matter anyone) of Karnivool as 'playing it safe' musically this always a relative judgement of course, as in that it refers to Karnivool playing it 'safe' relative to their own oeuvre, with the shadow of Sound Awake casting an especially wide shadow, and the kind of proggy rock/alt metal approach that has historically defined their sound. Then again, there are worse iterations of playing it safe out there, and even a fairly 'by-the-numbers' Karnivool record serves up a lot of proggy treats.

Album Rating: 4.0

Yeah, Karnivool is more like prog alt rock/metal, just like The Butterfly Effect. Caligula's Horse feels a bit similar guitar wise, although they are quite a 'standard' modern prog metal band. In The Netherlands (where I'm from) I feel like the symphonic metal, folk/pagan metal, and black metal scene are the largest. But there are a lot of Dutch bands in several metal scenes that are quite well known. Textures for instance.

Album Rating: 3.5

13 years between albums so I wonder if this was a case of an extended creative block or if they truly played it "safe" by writing what they know post-2021. The other possibility is that these songs were basically focus-grouped or iterated on over and over during the past decade

Aozora, Animation and Re- have been around for years and kept evolving between the shows, all the rest is probably from post-2021. 13-year gap seems like a combination of a minor creative block and lack of time to properly arrange and record this.

Am I the only one that thinks Remote Self Control is one of the best tracks here? Provides some well needed energy and is super rich in harmony