Well I'm a week into this album, listening to only this nonstop. I started out first hearing Invincible and Descending live on tour, and I was not blown away. I felt the guitar was weak, hated the guitar tone and thought the drums were forced to overplay to fill the empty space. Then I heard Fear Inoculum and didn't totally love it, and thought the vocals were a little strange.
Since then I have gone on a journey and completely changed my mind.
I literally had to reacquire the ear for hearing rock guitar with warm tones not drop tuned like most metal I listen to. It took me about 20 listens to get used to it again and remember how cool that can sound. I had to readjust my internal pacing when listening to music, as we all are on iPod time now and skip songs every minute or two. Instead, this album has intros that last 2 minutes before it even starts. I thought that wouldn't be a problem, but it turns out I was impatient and had to learn patience again. I immediately loved the bass, but it is still easy to miss some of the intricate ways he plays against the other instruments.
Now I'm just almost completely blown away by the album and how truly original it is. It's this insane, illogical fusion of pseudo-classic rock guitar with extremely creative song structure, completely over the top shredding drums with the best drum recording and sound quality maybe ever, bass guitar focused on delay and effects heavy melodic play, and vocals that shy away from songs at every turn and take a purposeful meditative backseat to every other instrument. No one is playing anything like this.
I listen to Meshuggah, and Animals as Leaders and lots of technical music for decades, but I still felt like this album went over my head for over a week. For most people, it may remain over the head indefinitely.
And honestly, it's still over my head. I can't even really count songs in 7 yet, and my brother who is a drummer is going to show me next time.
To me, this album is a triumph of breaking all the rules. Want 3 intros to a song to take 3 minutes before you truly even start? Go for it. Want over the top drum solos throughout? No problem. But in reality, this album has probably more rules than any of their others, and plays around with being in 7 throughout in an extremely calculated and polished way. And I am not even at the point yet that I can even tell that's true. Most albums, metal or not, I can get to the point that I've more or less memorized the drums for the entire album and can mentally follow along almost perfectly. It may take years before I feel like I can do that with this album's drums.
After listening to this album straight for a week and forming my opinions, a pivotal moment was going back to their previous stuff to skim it. It all sounded so simplistic and formulaic in comparison that it was shocking. That's when it started to sink in how weird, original and complex this album is.
