Hi all! Sorry for posting a new thread for this, but I just wanted to announce my return to home with convenient volume. Bear with it.
Yesterday I drove 700 kilometers and was only a few minutes late from getting DD, as the local record-shop at my home-town closed at six o'clock. "Well, one day more isn't that bad", I thought and went home. There my Father of Light lent me his wisdom, telling that he had forgotten to unplug our modem and thunder had broken it. Too tired to do anything about it, I went asleep.
Waking up at midday, I immediately starting working with the modem. I had to borrow an old one from a friend of mine and after several hours of hard work managed to install it properly - and glanced at the clock: it was almost six again! "No way, I ain't gonna wait DD any more days!" I said to myself and rushed to my car. Barely avoiding the suicide-attempts of old grannies coming on my way from all sides, I hit the store on time - and got a nice DD-poster alongside with the digipack!
Now I'm back home, the borrowed modem works well and DD is playing on constant repeat.Life hasn't felt this good for a LONG while.
Anyway, in order to make this thread serve other purposes than just my babblings, I'll hereby give you all my initial analyzis of Damage Done (actually, I was quite surprised to notice there weren't many of those already - did Rahvin delete all sensible discussion about the album already, or did my poor eyes just miss it all?)
First of all, there are many things that set DD apart from its two latest predecessors. In addition to the obvious change in sounds (somewhat "deeper" overall tone, the guitars are often more "blurred", ie. not so clear on the front), there's a certain difference in the song-structures as well. It's just my fifth time of listening the album through, so it's pretty hard to say exactly how the songs are different, but I'd call it a step towards more confident song-writing: there seems to be more subtle "hooks" lying all around the songs - all of them don't catch the ear on the first listen, but will do it later, when it is least expected. I'm not ashamed to say less than half of the songs have "opened up" on me this far - which is definitely a good sign! Only time will tell, does DD have the same staying-power as The Gallery or Projector have for me, but it looks promising this far.
About the production: as mentioned before, the guitars are not so much on the front as they have been on some earlier albums and the keyboards are definitely more "laid back" than on Haven. The bass isn't too loud, either, and the vocals are well "inside" the music - more just another instrument than the most defining factor in the songs. And that leaves us the drums, which are clearly audible, yes (instead of the more "rumbled" drumsound on The Mind's I, for example), but still no way too much on the fore-front.
So, am I saying there's nothing on the front there to catch the immediate attention? No - there's plenty: Mikael's voice takes several sudden twists and turns all through the album, sending shivers down my back on lines like "This is the final resistance" (I won't get in to the lyrics yet); the strong bass-sound is great on parts like the middle of The Enemy; excellent guitar-solos are used in places chosen with exceptional taste, like on the middle of Single Part of Two; the improvement in subtle keyboard-usage can easily be heard on songs like Hours Passed in Exile; and varied drum-fills highlight many silent-moments.
What I'm trying to say is those moments are used in places chosen more carefully than on Haven; the overall sound is better balanced with a "less is more" -approach that leaves the listener amazed with the combined sound of the orchestra, instead of any single instrument. Add to this the more polished, mature, incalculable song-writing and I can but say that Damage Done is the perfection of the style that started with Haven.
Full points + album of the year/decade/century/millennium this far.
-Villain (their "favorite Finn")
Edit: Confused one song-title.
Yesterday I drove 700 kilometers and was only a few minutes late from getting DD, as the local record-shop at my home-town closed at six o'clock. "Well, one day more isn't that bad", I thought and went home. There my Father of Light lent me his wisdom, telling that he had forgotten to unplug our modem and thunder had broken it. Too tired to do anything about it, I went asleep.
Waking up at midday, I immediately starting working with the modem. I had to borrow an old one from a friend of mine and after several hours of hard work managed to install it properly - and glanced at the clock: it was almost six again! "No way, I ain't gonna wait DD any more days!" I said to myself and rushed to my car. Barely avoiding the suicide-attempts of old grannies coming on my way from all sides, I hit the store on time - and got a nice DD-poster alongside with the digipack!
Now I'm back home, the borrowed modem works well and DD is playing on constant repeat.Life hasn't felt this good for a LONG while.
Anyway, in order to make this thread serve other purposes than just my babblings, I'll hereby give you all my initial analyzis of Damage Done (actually, I was quite surprised to notice there weren't many of those already - did Rahvin delete all sensible discussion about the album already, or did my poor eyes just miss it all?)
First of all, there are many things that set DD apart from its two latest predecessors. In addition to the obvious change in sounds (somewhat "deeper" overall tone, the guitars are often more "blurred", ie. not so clear on the front), there's a certain difference in the song-structures as well. It's just my fifth time of listening the album through, so it's pretty hard to say exactly how the songs are different, but I'd call it a step towards more confident song-writing: there seems to be more subtle "hooks" lying all around the songs - all of them don't catch the ear on the first listen, but will do it later, when it is least expected. I'm not ashamed to say less than half of the songs have "opened up" on me this far - which is definitely a good sign! Only time will tell, does DD have the same staying-power as The Gallery or Projector have for me, but it looks promising this far.
About the production: as mentioned before, the guitars are not so much on the front as they have been on some earlier albums and the keyboards are definitely more "laid back" than on Haven. The bass isn't too loud, either, and the vocals are well "inside" the music - more just another instrument than the most defining factor in the songs. And that leaves us the drums, which are clearly audible, yes (instead of the more "rumbled" drumsound on The Mind's I, for example), but still no way too much on the fore-front.
So, am I saying there's nothing on the front there to catch the immediate attention? No - there's plenty: Mikael's voice takes several sudden twists and turns all through the album, sending shivers down my back on lines like "This is the final resistance" (I won't get in to the lyrics yet); the strong bass-sound is great on parts like the middle of The Enemy; excellent guitar-solos are used in places chosen with exceptional taste, like on the middle of Single Part of Two; the improvement in subtle keyboard-usage can easily be heard on songs like Hours Passed in Exile; and varied drum-fills highlight many silent-moments.
What I'm trying to say is those moments are used in places chosen more carefully than on Haven; the overall sound is better balanced with a "less is more" -approach that leaves the listener amazed with the combined sound of the orchestra, instead of any single instrument. Add to this the more polished, mature, incalculable song-writing and I can but say that Damage Done is the perfection of the style that started with Haven.
Full points + album of the year/decade/century/millennium this far.
-Villain (their "favorite Finn"
)Edit: Confused one song-title.
