Leaderboard

opens with sustains and some (kinda cheesy) descending organ blocks. this is a nice patient intro that'd be home on several of the tracks off of Systematic Chaos by DT. the bass riff into band riffage with the tight kit behind it into a more complex version of the same thing is a classic escalation mechanic. bass tone in here is excellent, really like the bite. vocals come in at 1:31. seph's clean vocals here could use more bite in the tone imo, or even possibly a touch of distortion to add some edge. the guitars are so biting here as is the backing vocals, so something with more edge would have worked really nice. the diction and pitching is great though, even through the melismatic passages. the electric squeal in the right ear at 2:13 is unsettlingly loud and hurt my ears, it's a cool idea but needed to be quieter. i did the "ooh yeah" face at 2:25 - that double-time ensemble section right there is great, and it flows well into the 7/8 section right after it. there's a slam transition at 3:04 into...more of the same band stuff, which was a little surprising - i really expected an exploratory section after such a significant transition. there's a crunch at 3:49 that i thought was clipping but was just backing vocals being fried. after 4:00ish we get the ensemble section we've been waiting for. the organ here maybe needed a touch more room sound on it as it felt pretty dry (might just be the density of the backing parts). there's another 'chorus' section and then we get into an extended break section. this starts with a Tristram-esque acoustic section around the second part of Fleeting Respite that is beautifully recorded and played. i liked the detail on the drum work here as well. there's a few weird notes that don't quite fit in the end of it, but it's mostly not a problem. there's some more of the organ stacks around the big guitar slams (organ doesn't sound 100% in time), and some classic whoa-oh cyril stuff, and the backing guitar rhythm in here sounds pretty dope. i wouldn't have minded more verb on the vocals to help them be more choral and less like Hear N' Aid. we get a guitar solo after this that is excellent, and then a sudden ending that isn't particularly prepped. ending is kind of a let-down after such a big work - i'd actually have been fine with a fade-out as it's stylistically appropriate, but even a bigger fill going into that ending would have been nice. this is a huge undertaking and it's a fantastic result. from a compositional perspective, this is superb - there's a ton of interweaving of the different elements, it's super fun without being medleyitis, there's loads of creative adaptation throughout, and the performance of it is excellent as well. the mix is overall really solid as well despite all the parts - there's a few nits here and there, but overall this sounds professionally produced. superb work. YES