This album is a good follow-up on the predecessor "Your Wilderness". Regarding the songs and compositions itself, I think it's not as strong and a tiny bit more commercial sounding. Songs are more upbeat and tend to get rocky, which is not a bad thing at all. Sometimes I miss the nice mellow moods and atmospheres from "Your Wilderness", but both of these albums complement each other in a very nice way. Definitely a grower for me, as I started to appreciate the songs more and more with each listen. It's a bit short though.
The mix is very good, but not the best out there. I like that the drums are kind of raw sounding, with lots of the room mics mixed in, which gives the drums this natural sounding ambiance with lots of punch. Sometimes the body of the snare is too pronounced, which can muddy up the mix at the front from time to time. Overall, I'd have liked the cymbals to be mixed with higher volume, or at least some treble boost. The vocals on the other hand sound nearly perfect. A slightly more pronounced bass/sub would have been nice at some parts, but the album seems to be a bit inconsistent on that regard anyways.
I was surprised, that the surround field wasn't nearly used as much as on "Your Wilderness". The mix creates a nice surround field, but it's not as discrete as I'd hoped for. Also, the back field sounded kind of "narrow", if that makes any sense, almost as if the sounds were not really hard panned to the back speakers, but slightly moved into the back center field.
All in all, it's a great album with very good songs and a pleasing surround mix. I'd highly recommend it and gave it a 9!
