User: MikeEnRegalia

What's with Mr. Belew's strange interest for the animal kingdom? It's not that I mind ... he mimicks animal sounds with his guitar - which we already know from his recordings with King Crimson (Dinosaur etc.) - like no other musician did before. It's all a bit dissonant and hardly accessible for your typical fan of Disney type animal-related stuff (e.g. Lion King), but this should be a quite entertaining listening experience for people who are into the avant-garde side of things.

What a hilarious roller coaster ride! The whole album is a relentless mix of musically demanding compositions which a heavy dose of improvisation. The whole album is constructed like a radio show - it consists of many short tracks and a few longer ones, and they all contain short bits of "musical narration", the kind of which only Mike Keneally produces - for example, right at the beginning of the album you hear him saying "thank you for buying hat." by means of carefully arranged multi-layered vocal arrangements. Simply hilarious!

Wow. Just wow. The essence of "Slow". Also very, very minimalistic and sparse ... so quite unlike your typical Post-Doom Metal which is often dynamic and contains loud passages, quiet passages, sparse passages, dense passages ... this is static music which always stays in the same trod. Boring? Not at all. There are always little subtleties which you can focus on ... slight shifts in mood, the odd, faint major note in an overall minor setting.

I really enjoy listening to this album every once in a while ... great songwriting and very emotional vocals/lyrics. It's not typical power metal all the time, there are many extensive quiet passages, with great contributions by every band member - and they're never flashy.

A very nice fusion of a fully fledged orchestra and rock band. Well, not exactly your typical rock band if you know Mike Keneally. Quirky and weird are words which begin to describe his style, it's all very creative and resourceful and the collaboration with the orchestra works amazingly well ... the guitar, bass and drums blend perfectly with the other instruments, reminding of the Zappa albums where he used a big ensemble, only that in this case even more instruments are used.

Wow ... what a change compared to their previous album! This is much heavier, almost sounds like Meshuggah at times, albeit without the growling. Very interesting songwriting / arrangement, *vaguely* reminding of Fates Warning, I guess particularly because of the vocal lines which remind a bit of Ray Alder.

Very nice! It's less quirky and flashy than Dream Theater's When Dream and Day Unite, but also more intense and emotional. I really like the songs!

An enjoyable listen, but the music seems a bit indecisive to me. There are lengthy non-prog Southern Rock style passages, but also quirky melodic prog parts, and sometimes the quirky bits seem a bit out of place and almost artificial.

The album doesn't really convince me. It is a solid release and I am sure that many Judas Priest fans will enjoy it, but I found it a bit tedious to listen to in one sitting. In my opinion it is not varied enough both harmonically and as far as pace/dynamics are concerned. A possible point of reference would be Kamelot - The Black Halo ... that one is on the fringes of progressiveness, and I think that Nostradamus is at least one "notch" less adventurous. It also lacks the bite and aggression of Painkiller, one of my favorite JP albums ... it even seems a bit "tired" to me.

Wow, what an eclectic mix of styles! Some songs lack a bit substance IMO, but there are some brilliant ones too, and people who dig spacey improvisation will probably love it.

Nice! Reminds me a bit of Porcupine Tree, but without their recently developed heavy edge.

A very strong release. Mikael is still the main songwriter, but it seems like the other band members (especially the new ones at drums and 2nd guitar) add their influences to the compositions more prominently than on the previous albums. And the keyboards are no longer side effects like on Ghost Reveries - in fact they give this a lush, symphonic touch which reminds me of Camel - who Mikael is a huge fan of - more than anything they did before. The growling is still there, but to a lesser extent - for the first time clean vocals dominate a heavy Opeth album. Add to that the epic long track, and you get - a masterly prog album!

This is a Jazz album ... with a decent Rock influence and some Soul/Funk elements. It's quite mellow with a few melancholic passages/songs ... the guitar is not as prominent as on Chaos and Disorder, traditional Jazz instruments dominate the album, together with the beautiful vocal arrangements.

On this album Prince really rocks out ... at least on half of the tracks. Some brilliant guitar work and awesome vocal arrangements throughout, many different styles ... a really good album!