DEADEN THE FIELDS

I wrote a really long, track by track review of this album, but I left the laptop laying around while I attended to something else before I pressed submit and my fiance navigated away from this page, erasing the longest review of my extremely short career here at PA so this version will be short and sweet. If you liked Tiny Fragments you'll love this album. If you thought the Contextually Inept single was a step down from previous material as I did and feared it was a sign of things to come, don't worry, it's not. This is TTOL's best stuff so far. The only difference in the sound is that they filed down their influences as to not be all over the place anymore. Gone are the metal sections and the random dissonant riffs. I'd describe this band as having a post-rock orientated guitarist playing over a fusion trio of bass, drums and keys. The whole band uses the post-rock of long crescendo, breakdown, crescendo frame perfectly, although the only negative thing I'd have to say is that they stick to it a bit too much making it a bit predictable by the end of the album. The drums and keys are the lead instruments here, the bass is basic and the guitars often backround. Every track flows into the next one seemlessly so you'll have the impression it's one long track. I really enjoyed it, but because of the fact they use the same structure for every song I can't give this a 5 star review. 4.25 rounded down to 4.