TRACED IN AIR

My first thought about formulating this review was a question about how to rate it. "I think it is very good, but is it applicable to all audiences? Could I really be so bold as to say it's excellent for any collection, when many collections would disagree?" If I were to knock it for that reason, then almost the entire tech/extreme metal genre would have to be knocked down in ratings. This website would soon devolve to ratings based on genre which would be a great evil towards many great artists found in the more looked-down upon genres. We must rate these albums based on the concept that each genre is in and on it's own completely worthwhile and fine for any audience to ensure that they are properly rated.

This album moves. Simple as that. The vocal types don't stay stagnant, mixed between clean and different types of growls--the guitar almost never rests, creating a rhythmic backbone to support this beast, as well as add some sort of a melody--the drums play complicated mutating beats that add a great sense of excitement, movement, and chaos. The end result keeps you in suspension, the energetic sections pump adrenaline through you, but just as quickly as they start, they end, leading may to more undefined slow sections that make your skin crawl from ignorance--you can never tell when it will change, or even what into! Sometimes you're thrown back into the tempest of notes and double bass drums, sometimes you're dragged along for a long section of song whose buildup of Crimsonian speed throws you for a loop.

The writing on this album is excellent, so carefully constructed to sound like it almost doesn't have any, yet keeping it's sense of forward momentum throughout. This really illustrates what prog metal leaning towards the extreme sounds, even leaning towards avant-garde can do. Not to mention this music can serve several purposes; it works beautify as background music as you play Halo, works as music to prog-out to with a bunch of friends, and also works it you want some pieces to analyse for ingenuity, innovation, or just straight musicality.

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