My last review this year is not the most difficult (the most difficult was review of ikd-sj - Yvideo). But there is one subtlety: my review may seem biased to you - I am an atheist, and this is a Christian band. But I managed to look at the positive and negative sides of this album.
My rating: 64/100 Best song - Discarded World
Overall concept is very pleasant. Also there are specific ideas. For example, an idea with an abundance of reverb on voice in the absence of it on the instruments. This is a hint of street performance, proximity to ordinary listener. Also noteworthy is the album structure. In the beginning, the classic hard-n-heavy with a high voice (1, 2, 3, 5 tracks), among which there is something pop (4 track), a song with complex chords (6 track), a calm song on a clean (7 track), acoustic songs (8, 9 tracks) and at the end (10, 11 tracks) you can again hear the classic hard-n-heavy.
Composer's work is not very difficult. It's noticeable here that the composer set himself the task of transmitting to the listener some philosophical views, and not the creation of something new. I don't want to say that this is something bad. But it seems that initially there was one idea, which was divided between 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 11 tracks, and also slightly changed in 4 tracks. And then they inserted something acoustic and on the clean in the form of 7, 8 and 9 tracks. Composer tries to portray diversity, making it accessible and understandable to ordinary listener by means. I tend to see this as a negative color, as professionals don't have to be clear.
Vocalist is good - there is a lot of variety here. Vocalist copes with their tasks. There is almost no voice processing, but with one exception. As I wrote earlier, there is a lot of reverb on the voice. It's not clear why there is no reverb on instruments.
Let's continue with instruments. Instrumental parts - everything is predictable here. Classic hard-n-heavy - this is not the platform on which in our time you can come up with something new. But, as I wrote earlier, composer had no such task. Guitar parts - there is few interesting. Guitar, mainly, has power chords. And only scales allow you to hear a little charm of this genre. However, it was not without interesting ideas - there is a complex chord in track 6. Unfortunately, interesting ideas end here. Bass lines are more interesting. Most of the rantings I give for bass lines. Another part of the rhythm section - drums - doesn't look so interesting. However, for track 3, something interesting was inserted into ordinary heavy metal drum patterns. Also note the intro in track 6. That's all.
I have already seen many such band: exists for a long period of time, but the methods for solving artistic tasks are not very impressive. Steel Emblem, Baskerville - this is just the first thing that I instantly remembered. I can also add this band to this list. Perhaps because it comes straight out from composer's heart - emotionality hinders rationality. Perhaps the listener influenced very powerful album Victory In Christ (2010), after which wants something more. It's difficult to make unambiguous conclusions. But still something can be said with confidence. The expression of philosophical views of love and kindness is good. But I would like the reader to understand one simple thought: “a good person” is not a profession.
