Wow. I loved
Your Wilderness and
Dissolution, but this one is really special. I’ve been listening to the stereo mix all week and the only song that hasn’t connected with me yet is “The Game”. I suppose you could say it’s a bit of a slow-burn compared to
Dissolution, but the band rocks out pretty hard in “Break It All” and “Our Mire”. My favorite tracks would have to be “Demons”, “Driving Like Maniacs” (gorgeous!), “Leave Me Be”, and “Stop Making Sense”.
Putting aside the surround aspect for a moment, this album just
sounds fantastic. The drums in particular have remarkable heft and power. Everything is clear, crankable, and life-like.
Over the last week of stereo-only listening, I built up a picture in my head of what the 5.1 mix would be like (something I usually try to avoid, as it often leads to disappointment), but this is one of those rare instances where it turned out to be even more impressive than I’d imagined. In fact, I’d say Bruce Soord has graduated to the level of Elliot Scheiner and Steven Wilson with this mix. It’s far, far more adventurous than the 5.1 of
Dissolution.
The rear channels are generally used for backing vocals, guitars (acoustic and electric), keyboards, and percussion. The ‘pinging’ guitar intro to “Demons” slowly fades in from behind. The multi-tracked voices slowly building up from all four corners in "Too Many Voices" gave me goosebumps. I love the xylophone in the rears during “Stop Making Sense”. There are too many other highlights to list…
As has been mentioned before, the alternate mixes are quite different than what you'd expect (I agree with
@Neil Palfreyman's characterization of them as 'genre-defying'). It’s kind of like being in a Pineapple Thief drum circle, if that makes sense? I’m not sure if I prefer any of these to the main album versions, but they’re really cool. The surround mixes are nuts with different electronic percussion parts in each speaker and some seriously deep bass.
This is a “10” all the way for me. Thanks Bruce!
