All Traps Earth - What Do You Think?

Wonderful album, truly a modern progressive rock effort. Will be in my top 2 for 2018. 

What an amazing one really. 

DamoXt7942 wrote: What an amazing one really.

Edited by Lewian - December 30 2018 at 05:09

Lewian wrote: On first impression I like what I'm hearing. I'm not a big fan of Anglagard, but there's much more here in terms of atmosphere and emotion that resonates with me (whatever that tells about me). One major association for me is the Symphonic Pictures album of SFF. The vocals are OK and well used in my opinion, and I'm normally easily annoyed by bad vocals. That said, although this is a very well done appealing album, it is too retro and not innovative enough for my taste to be counted among the very best, I'd probably give it a solid four stars.  Thinking about it a bit more, I'm actually rather curious about whether... a) with more time this will grow into something really great, in 10 years or so like an old friend I am always happy to go back to, or b) in the long run pleasure will be affected by the impression that there's still too much showing off, complexity for complexity's sake and "we do it because we can" on this album. I agree that the album needs far more airtime for finding this out, but will I grant it that? I can tell you in 10 years.

Edited by Nogbad_The_Bad - December 30 2018 at 07:00

I only got it recently and if my experience with Anglagard is any guide (love/hate relationship for many years) it may take a decade before I really know what I think of it. For now it's probably in my top ten this year but not my top five. One can't fault the impeccable musicianship and beautifully constructed compositions - and as with Anglagard, I feel the players have an almost classical propriety of approach combined with the ability to strike hard but precisely like a good metal band. Much beauty but little warmth, much arse-kicking but no “rocking” (...in the right mood I don't mind this at all). And there's a core conservatism of approach that to me feels a bit limiting - the integration of zeuhl / RIO elements does not disturb this impression - let's be honest, these stylings can be used as just another flavour of retro at this point. (Aside: I always felt that Mattias was the only one who brought an element of freedom and wildness to Anglagard. Obviously he is not involved here).

siLLy puPPy wrote: Yeah, i know how that goes. Sometimes vocals prevent me from taking it in. I'm just saying, you're definately the only one i've heard say anything bad about this album!

 

I just gave the album a quick listen on YouTube to see what all the fuss has been about, and though indeed it's very good, it didn't really grab me nor made me love it. I guess I'll give it a few more listens to make up my mind if I'm still missing something and decide to buy it, but so far I definitley like Hybris much better.

Kempokid wrote: While I don't think it's quite a masterpiece, it's still a great album that I've listened to quite a lot lately, and can definitely see why it's as loved as it is.