After giving myself some time to become familiar with the album I've come to the conclusion that Construct is another really good effort by DT overall but I think it's not their best. There are just some songs/parts on this album that don't really get me. Nothing REALLY bad but quite some flaws. I think it has some songs that really feel different and fresh in a good way, some with a usual feeling but also some that I cannot really be friends with so far.
Stannes vocals are stunning throughout the whole album especially the clean ones, everything is fine with drums/bass too. I'm not overly satisfied with the guitar work in some songs though (maybe there's not enough Henriksson for me on this release). On the keyboard side I'm sometimes missing the piano-stuff from Fiction, otherwise it's solidly good, sometimes to dominant maybe where it needs to fill in for the guitars.
Songs that don't really work for me up until now:
For Broken Words, which just passes by without much Highlights, best part is the opening guitar melody (It growed on me over the past weeks since release though and might leave this list with a few more spins or after hering it live).
Apathetic, even though it is probably the most guitar driven song on the album. The riffing partly feels rather bland to me. Like the pre-chorus Section though and the beginning of the verse. I'm really disliking the part from 2:16-2:46, just gives me nothing.
None Becoming, which leaves me pretty cold, probably the closest DT can get to writing a bad song :/ Need to give it more spins though, as I've not really given it much of a chance so far. Iridium left me cold as well for quite some time, now I love it, so there is always hope
Actually while listening to it again right now as I'm writing this I think it has some good parts to it, so it will probably just need more time. Won't turn into a favourite though.
Now for the other ones
The Sience of Noise hast a pretty 90s feel to it in some parts (especially the bridge, love it!) and has really neat guitar work on the whole song. One of the Highlights for me even though the Chorus doesn't stand out as much as it could be from the magnificient verse&bridge.
Uniformity leaves me with a little bit of biased feelings about the verse but it's all turning very good with this infectious chorus melody. After the intro the verse starts with a little dissonant feeling that I'm not so fond of. It turns way better in the second part of the verse when the piano part kicks in followed by a beautiful chorus. Outro is a bit too long maybe, but good. Like this one
I absolutely love
The Silence in Between! Everything about this Song is what I like to hear. It maybe could use a bit more of a build-up in the beginning but this is not something I would criticize. Splendid guitar work, crushing drums, a little cooldown in between, melodic but still heavy chorus. Best song on the album.
What Only You Know starts with kind of over-dominant keyboards, which is also the only flaw this song has got throughout (ending part of the first chorus!). Again we've got amazing vocals by Mikael, be it clean or rough. The little bridge has a nice feeling to it, also the chorus. Very good song overall with some minor flaws.
When I first heard the beginning of
Endtime Hearts I think I thought "Ouch, what is this?!" (up until around 15 or 20 seconds in). Pretty horrible start, which goes into a verse that is saved by the good vocals. The "chugging" (don't know if this is the right word for this) riff in the verse is something I'll probably never like about this song or in general wherever something like this appears. Everything turns better though with the calm pre-chorus which really leads well into the energetic chorus. Cool solo followning the second chorus, would've liked to hear more of these. Nice transition into the pre-chorus too.
A very good song all in all even though I'm not too fond of the verse.
I really like the calm beginning of
State of Trust, with those beautiful cleans again, the guitar becoming more domniant after a while...and then it's suddenly disrupted after 49 seconds. The part from 0:49-1:03 is saved once again by the vocals and this time also by the synths which fit this part pretty well. Don't like the riffing here again. When it turns more "fluid" again for the second part of the chorus it is much more to my liking and just fits the song better imho. I'm a fan of this song but this pre-chorus riff is just too disruptive to be enjoyable for me. The variation in the chorus (turning rough vocals into clean ones in the 2nd and 3rd one) is also a neat addition.
One of my absolute favourites on Construct despite the things I dislike about it.
Again some chuggy riffs in
Weight of the End but those are outweighed by far by the good parts
. All in all good riffing in this one leading to a catchy chorus and and a neat melodic bridge / outro which pleases my ears very much
Uff, didn't think I'd write so much but just couldn't reduce it to one-liners ^^
Edit: Have just listened to the Bonus Songs once so far, need to give
Immemorial some more spins before judging it but it left me with a good feeling when I listened to it.
Photon Dreams felt kind of unnecessary to me.
