OK, quick review of the album (not going to leave many comments on the songs we've already heard, as it's been done to death):
Voices - 6/10 - average
I, the Mask - 7.50/10 - good chorus, song is alright
Call My Name - 5/10 - not great
I Am Above - 7.5/10 - heavier than usual, decent
Follow Me - 6.5/10 - I really like the intro and the acoustic guitar in general, but unfortunately that's pretty much as far as it goes. Vocal melodies way too autotune tinged, it's really distracting.
(This is our) House - 0/10 - piece of shit.
We Will Remember - 7/10 - weird opening, but I kind of like it. The song in general has a bit of a power metal vibe to it at certain points, which I didn't expect. I actually quite like the riffs in this one. Nothing original, but they're cool. Obviously the lyrics are all about the older songs, which I guess is supposed to be Anders' way of saying they haven't forgotten the old stuff. Strange to do that in a song that actually sounds like none of the old stuff except maybe parts of SC, but whatever. This is alright.
In This Life - 4/10 - SC style opening, reminds me of With Eyes Wide Open. In fact this song in general reminds me of SC, just with better production and more autotune on Anders' voice. Chorus is awful. "LiIiIiIIifFfeEe" .... shut up, man. Don't like this one at all. Slow, annoying vocals, boring riffs, terrible chorus.
Burn - 7.5 - originally didn't like it, but it grew on me.
Deep Inside - 7 - the riffs don't sound particularly in-flamesish with that middle-eastern sound, but it's cool to hear something different. Chorus is the same old shit but ignoring that this is quite a decent track for modern IF. Nice to hear Bjorn being allowed to rip a solo for once, rather than having it cut short as seems to happen on most other tracks.
All the Pain - 6/10 - of all the places for Anders to dial down on the autotune, it's funny that he chose the verses in this one, where his voice often isn't being supported by the instruments.
Stay With Me - 6.5/10 - some really nice melodies but I'm not a huge fan of the vocals. The ending is great.
Not Alone - 5/10 - why does every chorus have to be the same autotuned shit with very similar melodies? It's passable on a few tracks buit not practically every track on the record. This is bugging me now. Otherwise the song is unremarkable and a weak way to end the album..
Overall rating - 6.5/10.
I'm not going to join in the cirlejerk calling this the best album ever, masterpiece, really amazing, etc. It's not. It's just an above average album for modern IF standards, and that's about it. Better than SC, better than Battles, not as good as SOAPF. Just about what I expected. We heard all of the heavier tracks released as singles, the rest of the tracks were almost totally clean singing. I find this a very interesting decision, but an odd one too. It feels a bit misleading in all honesty, as the released singles do not represent the album as a whole. There's a serious disconnect between how three of the singles (IAA, ITM, Burn) sound compared to the rest of the album, and House is just out there on its own in the void. If you bought the album based on the singles, expecting to hear similar, I think you'd be pretty confused and a bit disappointed.
I think Bjorn has created some really cool meloodies and riffs at certain points in this album, whilst other times it sounds a bit generic. Solos still sound very samey and often seem to be randomly cut off. But overall he's done an OK job, he sounds much more inspired than he was on SC or Battles. I'd love to hear what Bjorn could produce with a different vocalist (an actual singer) but sadly I'm not sure we'll ever hear that. The vocals are a sticking point for me and drag things down a bit, but if you really like Anders' singing voice this won't be a problem. I can only really tolerate the autotuned crooning in small doses.
