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1 hour ago, Nowhere Girl said:

Albums usually chart high on their first few days due to day 1 buyers (usually pre-existing fanbase).

 

No, I don't think that's particularly controversial. I'd give it a 10/10. The tenth of ten albums.  

 

My second listen was a bit more positive. Used a different audio setup and boosted the treble. Sounds way better, but still appallingly overcompressed. I can probably get into this in time. It'll be fun live for sure. 

I think they probably count all the pre-orders and "few days before launch from Tower Records" sales as day 1 too.

1 minute ago, EzraEroguro said:

Where's the breathing room?

Between the release of Arche and The Insulated World.

I don't think the CD version is going to be better. Remastered and expanded edition, when?

On the bright side, if less dynamic range is better, then this album wins. My foobar addon gives all their songs 4-5DR, which is their new record. Also, all these solid bricks mean the record won't topple over even in hurricane season. A+/11

Just now, Desi said:

Did they forget to master the album? most of the songs sound really muddy have serve clipping and worse some vocal parts sound like they were just slapped into the mix with no effort to mix them properly at all.

I'm kinda used to diru albums having this heavy reverb and recording in a public toilet sound to them but I feel this is even worse.

I hope the cd sounds somewhat better -__-

Now the positive, most of the songs are great they have a pretty wide variety to them ( I love followers and 谿壑の欲  <3) 

I just wish at this point we could have Яyo Trackmaker master all Japanese metal as he seems to be the only person who has any grasp of audio engineering.

Someone did say they pushed very close to the deadline this time. To me that sounds kind of like they were actually reeeally late and had to rush a lot of the production. Hence the pacing, mix, mastering, typos and whatever.

The first band I saw in Japan was the Gazette for free. Found a raffle ticket in my copy of Distress and Coma and saw them at Shibuya Ax a few days later which was dope. Also won a signed Plastic Tree fan at one of their Budokan shows.

20 minutes ago, blacktooth said:

I think rearranging the track order could do this album great justice to fix the flow and balance it out better. Got any suggestions? 

The biggest problem for me was the beginning. Maybe my ears are ruined from all the VK instrumental intros, but I like to be eased into a record. And getting two kind of same-y brick-wall tracks that are just loud through out felt wrong. I would start with something like Rubbish Heap or Values of Madness, because they at least have short intros.

26 minutes ago, EvilHippy said:

So, do you think this album has the similar feel as Ninth from Gazette? Shorter, simpler and e.t.c.?

...Also, somehow it seems more live-friendly than Arche.

I don't know if the music is similar, but somehow I do feel the same now as I did after first hearing Ninth. Both are fairly straight-forward records that follow more conceptual, heavy and ambitious projects. And both, while not bad, left me feeling a bit unfulfilled.