SNOW

I love their first three albums. But this one I find just awful. An overlong, derivative and very forced concept album, the concept itself is completely derivative and uninspiring as is the bulk of the lyrics. When Neal shuts up, and lets the instrumentalists stretch out, it gets good...and there are only like two songs where that happens in the whole two hour affair, the Overture and Ryo's solo (both of which are awesome classic Beard). There are some really, truly awful lyrics to be found here, in fact both discs are chock-full of them. Freak Boy is a good example of the cheesiness. Then again, there are a few good songs. I liked Open Wide the Floodgates quite a bit. But for the most part, the only "Long Time Suffering" is me listening to this whole thing. Really, really bad.