01. I, Pallbearer 02. Sing For The Damage We've Done [feat. Neige] 03. Us Against December Skies 04. I'm All About The Dusk 05. Three Empty Words 06. Once Upon A Winter 07. And Oceans Between Us 08. Silver Needle // Golden Dawn 09. Time Is A Ghost 10. Song To Say Goodbye [Placebo cover]
Harakiri For The Sky make their most compelling case yet for the argument that "there's no such thing as too much of a good thing", but I'm still not fully convinced.
Removing Audrey Sylvain's guest feature from this album for her "fascist" views while still having Neige as a guest is so unbelievably the-current-year.
I've always thought these guys have good music but not enough to justify the length of their albums. Unbelievably, this is even longer than their previous records. I guess they make sure to supply for any fans that simply can't get enough of their sound
After one listen, I feel that despite being even longer than the previous albums, this one does a better job at keeping me entertained until the end. I felt Arson started way too strong and I then got bored after a few tracks (despite liking them a lot). Here I didn't think about cutting my experience short. But let's see how it goes after repeated listens.
Besides that, no big surprise in the style here, it's Harakiri for the Sky like we're used to, and I wouldn't ask for anything else, I love this!
This is a really good album. But I agree with many of you, the length is just too heavy. I tend to listen to music in albums, and albums this long that doesn't justify the length, I just don't revisit... Us Against December Skies is a banger.
That's curious, I liked all the songs here but if I was going to cut one song to make it a bit more manageable lengthwise (apart from the cover), I would potentially pick that one. Although it might just be slightly overshadowed by being stuck between my two favourites tracks here
Just overwhelmed, I was a bit worried about the lack of variety, but I was wrong. I chuckled when I saw that this album is 84 minutes long. This trend of 70+ minute albums going on since Aokihagara and Weltenasche (Karg) really ruined Traktat, Kargs last album, for me. This however is in my opinion their most versatile album yet. Beautiful melodies, yet leaving one track off would´ve made this perfect.
Best song: Once Upon A Winter
It has balance between black metal and post metal, and unique post black touch, interesting formation, good melodic stuff, but only bad part its 15minutes to long to me.
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I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens.
Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
Not bad but too many mainstream riffs for this to be properly enjoyed by me.
Seeing any form of extreme metal get labeled as 'mainstream' is and will always be hilarious to me.
If you had any reading comprehension, you would see that I was talking about the riffs and not the band itself. There's a lot of uninspired riffs in this that are stock riffs mainly utilized by mainstream bands or bad metal. There are, however, extreme metal bands that are mainstream to the metal community.
Not bad but too many mainstream riffs for this to be properly enjoyed by me.
Seeing any form of extreme metal get labeled as 'mainstream' is and will always be hilarious to me.
If you had any reading comprehension, you would see that I was talking about the riffs and not the band itself. There's a lot of uninspired riffs in this that are stock riffs mainly utilized by mainstream bands or bad metal. There are, however, extreme metal bands that are mainstream to the metal community.
Easy there, lords of chaos. What makes a riff mainstream? It being catchy or non-complex? If so, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If it sounds good, it sounds good.
Anytime I see the word mainstream, I think it applies to artists like Ariana Grande or Imagine Dragons. And even mainstream metal is stuff more akin to Five Finger Death Punch or Avenged Sevenfold, which Harakiri still sounds nothing like.
I just completed a road trip in The Netherlands listening to this album almost the whole time (with a break for Dutch radio to try to improve my awful dutch), and boy... Us Against December Skies is insane. The minute I got home I picked up my guitar and started improvising on top of the song. Its a masterpiece. The album is not, but its definitely good.
As for the conversation above...not that I think Harakiri for the Sky are the most extreme band ever, but associating this band with mainstream in any way or form... They even went out of their way to make it almost one hour and a half long so that no one born post 1990's would have the patience to listen to this lol
After one listen, I feel that despite being even longer than the previous albums, this one does a better job at keeping me entertained until the end. I felt Arson started way too strong and I then got bored after a few tracks (despite liking them a lot). Here I didn't think about cutting my experience short. But let's see how it goes after repeated listens.
Besides that, no big surprise in the style here, it's Harakiri for the Sky like we're used to, and I wouldn't ask for anything else, I love this!
I was going to write this exactly. If they only reduce overall length for example in these highlights I would give it definitely even higher rating:
02. Sing For The Damage We've Done [feat. Neige]
04. I'm All About The Dusk
05. Three Empty Words
06. Once Upon A Winter
07. And Oceans Between Us
10. Song To Say Goodbye [Placebo cover]
I was going to write this exactly. If they only reduce overall length for example in these highlights I would give it definitely even higher rating:
02. Sing For The Damage We've Done [feat. Neige]
04. I'm All About The Dusk
05. Three Empty Words
06. Once Upon A Winter
07. And Oceans Between Us
10. Song To Say Goodbye [Placebo cover]
I would personally trim that list even further, but with a couple different retainers, to look like this:
01. I, Pallbearer
02. Sing for the Damage We've Done
03. Us Against December Skies
04. And Oceans Between Us
There are elements of other songs I like and would even try to infuse them across this track list or form another song out of but overall I just found this to be incredibly bloated for what it is.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
Maybe this is good for some who like these lengthy tracks but for me, anything more than 7 minutes is too much even if it is really good music. One in an album is okay but almost all....too tiring.
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In the beginning I was made of clay. Then I bit the apple and they changed me to metal 🤘
I usually don't like ultra long albums but for this one I think the length is justified. The melodies and riffs falls right into place for me and I wasn't bored for a single moment. I really really like this band.