A SCEPTIC'S UNIVERSE

Whether naturally or for novelty, Spiral Architect have created perhaps the most technical metal album that I've ever heard. The highlight of the album really is the rather unique bass playing. The overall tone of the instrument really helps to separate the bass player Lars from others, and the almost improvised sounding bass lines provide for an excellent listening experience. The band members do some really amazing things with their instruments. But besides the overwhelming complexity, there's really nothing to this album. If I've ever heard a lifeless album this is it. It's like Spiral Architect wrote it never expecting a human to listen to it. A machine listening to this would be very impressed, as am I when I listen to what they do with their instruments. However, there's no point to any of it, nothing really memorable.

They certainly have the "how" of playing their instruments down, but I think they need to do some searching and find the "why".