i get the criticisms of stef’s guitar. it used to be something i thought around DE era. but it’s something that just isn’t ever going to happen with this band. if you’re wanting something beyond the grooves and chugging, you’re wanting to listen to a different band at this point.
It seems like Stef got even more intentionally simple this go round at parts. He really rides one or two notes a lot here, and it works.
I fell asleep a few tracks in last night but I really like Urantia, excited to give this a proper listen after work
So let’s talk about that opening synth in “This Link Is Dead”. If I didn’t know any better I’d swear that was John Carpenter. Been on a huge Carpenter kick lately and the man scores about 90% of his own films. That synth sounds eerily familiar haha!
Digging this. I think I made a mistake of not turning this up loud enough on the first listen. I look forward to playing it louder in the car.
Did they record these songs individually? Drum production almost sounds slightly different on each song.
people can like or dislike something but as a songwriter I guess I have a p big issue with projecting things like “uninspired” onto the band
Radiant City is really cool in that Chino decides to tone it down during that dirty riff then gets aggressive with the vocals during the lighter section instrumentally. Seems like it would be easy to do the exact opposite, but it allows the riff to the focal point then switches to his screaming vocals being the main focus for the next part.
First listen was last night. My second is right now. I’ll start with it’s a great album, blows Gore out of the water for me. The things I read in here beforehand that didn’t click with me are that this is their heaviest album, and that this resembles SNW. Not disappointed in that aspect, those just didn’t click for me. Steph harkens back to his early albums and style in the band a lot. Very straight forward this time around, with the focus being more on blending the guitars in and out with the synth and drums. Really feels like so much more of a group effort this time around. Abe goes off. There’s a few parts I need to rehear a few more times, but felt I really love his approach to every track. Him and Serg have some fun at the end of Mathematics.
Early impression is that this is maybe the most cohesive record they've ever put out, and the use of synth to tie everything together is a big part of that.
I wouldn't use this as a metric. Gore did too - in fact, somehow, it has a higher Metacritic than SNW, Self Titled, Diamond Eyes, and White Pony.
think my favorite songs on this are "headless," "error" and "the spell of mathematics." also "genesis" which is perfect in every way i for one thought gore was supremely heavy especially the end of it, and everyone's complaints about that record beyond the production make no sense to me whatsoever. but this is better than gore yes. it's like kny and the s/t crosspollinated. when i said it was so smashing pumpkins a few pages ago, i think i meant it goes for the heavy/spacey dynamic range of mellon collie throughout, sometimes several times within the same song, cf. the absolutely crushing "urantia" riff being mostly used as a texture on a very dreamy song instead of as its guiding riff