If you enjoy midpaced metal soaking in keyboards then you might as well stop reading this review and go right out and buy this. However I’ll keep going if you want a bit more detail to help you make up your mind. The vocals are of the clean variety and while they sound decent enough they are very weak. It’s kind of a drone devoid of any emotion, which keeps me from having any real feeling about this album. This is not helped by the fact that this band is a bit too in love with themselves. The guitarists never fail to cram in six riffs where one would be perfect. The incessant noodling serves only to get on my nerves as a matter of fact. The worst part of all this is that they don’t really sound all that great at it. The guitarists are certainly skilled but this album seems to be very average for the genre. I admit I don’t follow this sort of music that well so ask around.

The keyboardist is much more restrained than the guitarists, although that possibly the emptiest praise I have ever given someone because when he does make his presence known I end up wishing he hadn’t. The bassist and drummer are pretty good at keeping the songs somewhat grounded while everyone else is off wandering aimlessly. However they get mixed down sufficiently that they have no chance of holding this album together. Combine this with the fact that the songs all tend to feel overlong, especially the last song “Negative Two-Thirds”, which is eleven and a half minutes long, and you get a mess of a record. If any of these songs went anywhere I would probably be more interested but sadly these guys seem to prefer the sound of their own instruments to making actual music.

[Visit the band's website]

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