Review Summary: DEG finds a great balance between their more recent work and their older JRock influenced parts.
DEG has finally found the sweet spot of being really hardcore (ala Dum Spiro Spero) and their older VK stylistic (which was a mixed bag overall).
Kyo's vocals are now well balanced throughout the song, prominently exhibiting his vocal range, from ethereal flows to high pitched, seemingly vocal shredding screams all the way to epic Jrock badassness that only showed up a few times in prior releases (ie: Karasu breakdown). Most of the content of the song are now a bit more philosophical in nature, unlike prior albums they are a bit more intangible, dealing with maturity, dreams, metamorphosis.
Kaoru and Die both are in front but never fighting against each other. As always this dynamic results in both beautiful phrasing that fill both low and higher end spectrum filling out the songs while often giving the songs a really epic feel. Like the other members in the band, they use different techniques that span multiple genres and styles of music, with them working their magic to fit their sounds together even if riffs are from different genres.
Shinya is still on top of his game, keeping the band together, mixing various drumming techniques. What separates his drumming with other metal/hard rock bands is that he is constantly active, it's more than just a few patterns for songs, especially when his patterns are all from different genres of music.
Toshiya is the weakest link in the album, although just only slightly behind his band brothers. Obviously his timing is on the dot but there really isn't much space for him due to the two guitars driving most of the sound and there are only a few parts like those sprinkled in Cause for Fickleness and Tousei where bass is takes flight. Obviously not his fault since he is a very well accomplished bass player and it was probably just an overall band decision not to have him out in front.
Like Dum Spiro, the production values is really impressive, you can easily hear everything, the high pitched ghost notes, metallic bass jangle, every part of Kyo's vocals, the triplets off the toms. It creates a very cohesive atmosphere and coupled with the fact that the album is well balanced, featuring styles throughout DEG's history, it creates an album much better than anything they've released before.
