CLOSE TO THE EDGE

Close to the Edge is one of those "cosmic experience" albums that brings you into its own dimension when listening, and is part of my holy trinity of such albums, along with Gorguts' Obscura and Sleep's Dopesmoker... Obscura is chaotic, avant-garde and heavily layered, and Dopesmoker very droning, hypnotic and powerful... but there is a reason this album is #1 here: CTTE, with its grandiose themes and harmonies, has classic written all over it - much like Casablanca, a fan-favourite episode of The X-Files or the N64's Zelda: Ocarina of Time... the arrangements and their underlying instrumental lines are sophisticated and complex without being excessive, making for an easy listening experience despite its peaks and valleys of intensity.