I don't know what on Earth happened with this album. The first 1.5 tracks are a superbly executed mix of post-rock, math-rock, shoegaze that just works oh so well and is really impressive in how rich yet coherent it is. An easy 4.1-4.2 from me at that point and I was wondering why this album wasnt an Aberf 5.0. The second half of 2 is a bit weaker, and the wow factor is reduced to a quite cool, but the intro of 3 makes you think taht was just a temporary blip. Then, the vox come. They really don't work well for me, being in English, backed by male vocals in quite a cheesy combination, and compositionally not that interesting. From that point on, I really don't know what the album is doing. After 3 which ends up feeling quite lame because of the vocals, 4 has random ass 80s vocoder vocals that really are out of place here. The midtrack with the guitars starts being cool, and then the vocals break it again. The ambient outro is nice I suppose, but it doesn't help with engaging with the album. 5 has a quite a pretty post-rockish intro that gets your hopes up again, only to end up unfolding on a pretty middle of the road post-rock track. 6 attempts a grand post-rock closure with strings and shoegazy guitars in the background, but the slow tempo and fact that everything that preceded is pretty meh makes it feel like a protracted conclusion rather than an epic closure of a great album. So despite a stunning first track and a half, I am not sure how to rate this because the contrast makes the rest look so bad in comparison, but I'll go with a 3.45
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