Album Rating: 4.5

im a pretty big fan of mattel as a song and even i think the plastic daisies line/delivery is abysmal lol

"I mean hey, at least it's a more creative rhyme than the usual "reason/season" crap"
having an edgier-than-average dystopian scope does not in anyway make that rhyme less pedestrian. a7x isn't a band i'd normally go out of my way to shade for lyricism, but jfc that (otherwise pretty solid) track is egregious

Album Rating: 5.0

I don’t think anything like the stage gets made with the Rev but he would’ve loved this shit.



Imagine him doing some of these vocal passages that Matt strains on. Goddamn this record would be even better

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

The Rev on this album would've been next level. Holy shit.

Album Rating: 4.1

Actually, the Rev would have probably improved the Mattel chorus quite a bit. Having him sing the melodic part, and then Shadows coming in with HELLLLLLLLLL

Album Rating: 4.0

'I don’t think anything like the stage gets made with the Rev but he would’ve loved this shit.'



100%

Album Rating: 4.1

Speaking of the Rev and Mattel, fun fact: he actually wrote the bridge to that song, making LIBAD the first writing credit he's gotten since Nightmare

Album Rating: 5.0

"Very Peart like and Portnoyish at times, which is a really good thing."



i would say rev sounds far more similar to portnoy than brooks does (rev is pretty much the portnoy disciple)... and def wouldn't say brooks sounds much like peart either. brooks is a bit more fluid where peart is more stringent.



not all that familiar with many punk drummers but honestly the drummer brooks sounds the most like to me is the rev, which sounds stupid cause brooks was around before a7x but yeah. feel like that's exactly why he fits so well in the band and exactly why i'm so dumbfounded people think they couldn't have made the stage with rev lol. both punk drummers playing in a metal band except brooks played in a lot more non-metal bands before joining the metal band

No diss to Rev but Brooks is just terrific. The polyrhythm in Paradigm gets me every time.

also that 60s psych pop break in Beautiful Morning is niiice 👌

Album Rating: 5.0

'I don’t think anything like the stage gets made with the Rev but he would’ve loved this shit.'

Why do people think like this when he wrote A little Piece of Heaven and helped write City of Evil? I mean ffs there's parts of this that's written by the Rev, these takes about him are wild.

Brooks is awesome though, they landed so well getting him in.

Honestly who knows what beast could Rev have become today. He'd be playing for years and years more than what we got. And maybe he'd still be here to lend backing vocals and help Shadows for stuff like the higher register in Higher

Album Rating: 4.0

I love Higher Sabs!



The drumming on fermi gets me every time though. So many unique arrangements throughout that song like the blast beats over Shadows soft vocals and the offbeat bass / snare at the 4:32 mark. I'm surprised that we rarely mention that song - solid gold.



Intricacies boys!

Album Rating: 3.5

the stage is the best post wtf a7x

Album Rating: 4.0

not sure how many of you guys have seen these, i thought they were pretty cool:





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=098oVj6GNDY

Album Rating: 4.0

https://youtu.be/ArH70dyfR9M

Yeah I was sure Fermi Paradox would become an istant all-time A7X song but it doesn't seem so.

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=098oVj6GNDY"

This looks cool! I was sure I had already watched something about The Stage but this feels new to me

"https://youtu.be/ArH70dyfR9M"

This went better than expected tbh. I find it amusing how Shadows is pretty much the current day equivalent of the old raspy rock singers

Album Rating: 4.1

The thrashy part in the middle of Fermi (with the weird choir vox) always gives me Transcending Bizarre vibes

Album Rating: 5.0

"https://youtu.be/ArH70dyfR9M"



damn even isolated he sounds great

Album Rating: 2.5

Brooks> yeah.

Album Rating: 3.5

In that video there are vocal takes I like and others that don't hit, it matches the album. He's still got the range he just sounds different, sometimes definitely on purpose. The vocal harmonies are really quite creative and fun throughout.