I got my album today in the mail. 5 days early. Century Media is effin' awesome. Listening now for the first time. So far so good!
edit: The album is awesome. I think I will enjoy the album more as I listen to it more but my first impressions are very positive. Production is killer, as expected.
Of course, but I feel most people got into Soilwork around NBC/FNF (and some for the production of STD), so they won't like the older style Soilwork... which is incidentally what I prefer For me, their downfall started with FNF, and since then it's only been pop metal, not high quality gothenburg metal. My favourites are TCM and APP (their pinnacle). STD was the first album I sold away, and the next album I never even bought because the few songs I heard were so bad. After listening to the new album twice, I can only remember the blastbeat song's beginning a little bit. Everything else went into one ear, and out from the other. No memorable songs or even parts When I first heard APP, half the songs caught my ear right away, and since then it has only improved over the years. I rarely skip any song on it. TCM is a bit less listened to by me, because I basically burned through it back in 2000 10-15 times a day for 6 months, no lie. I can easily listen through the album without even having it playing
EMG 85s sound kind of spongy and juicy, I'm not sure that's what you're talking about, however I'm pretty sure they still use 'em from the tones they got in that album.