Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

"just go listen to imperial circus dead decadence instead"



Aether Realm's Tarot.

Album Rating: 2.5

So this is finally done? I forgot about it long ago. Does it guttural slam or does it not guttural slam? This is what I need to figure out. Realistically It'll probably be the hardest 3 ever for me but I'm curious.

wait… isnt a Noctus 1.5 actually a 4+? like Hospice, In Somniphobia, Heritage, Empros, Viva Emptiness, Spiderland etc

some bad takes there for sure, but I'll generally defer to Noctus' judgement on cheesy larger than life metal

Holy shit this album is divisive. Gotta check on that basis alone

Album Rating: 3.8

I hate Jari but this shit just rips.

Album Rating: 3.5

Finally managed to get a proper listen in without being annoyed and distracted and listening to the actual songwriting and structure of this. At this point I start agreeing with Hawks more, this shit rips pretty hard.



The Way of the Fire, One with the Shadows and The Storm are all on par with Suns of Winter and Stars imo, which is what made me aware of them. Excellent songs that go hard and have a lot of interesting ideas to them. Silver Leaves I don't really get yet, just feels like a bombastic 13 min ballad that doesn't seem to go anywhere. Idk maybe it'll open up. For now in the 3,5/4 range for me.

the snare is comically bad, or well the drums in general really

Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off

Making a blast master like Kai Hahto sound like amateurish programmed drums is an unforgivable sin.

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

in the interest of fairness i've added an addendum to my review concerning the more dynamic version. though it doesn't fix all issues, it's absolutely more listenable.



"wait… isnt a Noctus 1.5 actually a 4+? like Hospice, In Somniphobia, Heritage, Empros, Viva Emptiness, Spiderland etc"



you spend an unusually high amount of time looking at my ratings. a 1.5 by me is whatever rating you please.



there's some ratings there i barely remember and are likely outdated for the record - unsurprisingly i don't spend a lot of time with records i didn't like at the time, but i was definitely needlessly harsh on some of those picks.

Album Rating: 3.5

"Making a blast master like Kai Hahto sound like amateurish programmed drums is an unforgivable sin."



That's my biggest thing. Kai is world class. There should be no need to compress the shit out of his drums. Let that shit breathe

Album Rating: 4.0

Poor review.



Album rules!

Album Rating: 3.5

Easy 4.5 if the prod was better.

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

"Poor review."



care to elaborate or is it simply that you disagree with me?

Album Rating: 3.5

I love folk metal cheese so it’s hard not to enjoy this, I’m having a blast with it despite the flaws. That said, it’s actually wild how much the production holds this back. Especially in the most epic and busy moments, like the crescendo of The Way of the Fire at 4:20ish onwards, the synths squash the mix so much it feels like every element is fighting to be heard, it’s almost painful. It would be a nuisance ordinarily to have something like this be mangled by the mixing, but it’s extra annoying when the production is supposed to be the highlight.

Album Rating: 2.5

Despite being unmoved by the majority of this, I do really enjoy the solos. The solos on Way of the Fire and One with the Shadows are particularly beautiful.



On a more negative note, Silver Leaves is just mind numbingly boring, and it's compounded further by Jari's lagging and incredibly grating vocals. Such a disappointing song.

I've given this a couple listens, and while I agree that the production makes it hard to really enjoy this, there is still plenty to like. Not quite ready to ascribe a rating quite yet.

The funny thing is that there are already fan remasters showing up that sound inarguably better (to my ear) than what Jari decided was the best version of this stuff. A remix of Storm has the section around 1:35 with the descending guitar lines sounding quite a bit better and more easy to discern by simply bringing the drums down a bit and boosting the guitar a tad. How is it that some rando on YT can make this stuff sound better in just a couple of days?

"Wow, those guitars are tough to make out" > turns up guitars. "Shit, those drums are really loud" > turns down drums.

*Music sounds better*

Jari wrote some really cool stuff here, but he needs to hand the mastering over to someone else.

Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off

Silver Leaves sucks. No guitar leads. The same general vibe the whole song. 5 minutes of filler that adds nothing to the song on the beginning and end of the track.

Album Rating: 3.0

Yeah silver leaves is pretty boring



Way of fire and storm are dope tho



I don’t know why the fuck it took 12 years for like 4 songs that were mostly already written but whatever lol



I just hope now he fuckkng releases material a LITTLE faster. He said that would be the case now but who the hell knows with Jari



I’m hoping that this is a case where this particular project was too overwhelming for him and now he can release less bombastic shit without 70000 tracks and not give us a decade plus wait

Album Rating: 3.5

I think we'll get more the same with jari forever. 5-7 between albums with massive grifting campaigns prior to each one