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Ah, but what beautiful nothing it is. This is my first excursion into post-rock, and it may have been the wrong album. I get the feeling when listening to it that I needed some patience gained from another album to listen to this and fully appreciate it, but perhaps not. In my mind, the crescendos are not ear-shatteringly good enough to justify the 5 minute wait. Not that I mind waiting for the really good part, but I often feel that the build-up is not as interesting as it could and should be. Which is not to say that any part of this album is bad.

It probably would have been better if the build-ups didn't take quite as long. However, since they do, it's best to listen to this in halves, as it's hard for me to imagine sitting through this entire album in one sitting.

The lyrics are, as you know, in Hopelandic, a made up language. Which is fine with me, because they obviously want the voice to be instrument. When I heard that I said Great, now I can ignore the lyrics and concentrate on voice as an instrument like some people on the forum told me to try and do with Jon Anderson. Unfortunately, I was wrong. It ends up that the singer says "You sigh" with some sort of variation at the end about a million times. I have no idea what that means in Hopelandic, but considering that he's just making this up as he goes along and that nobody really knows what he's saying, he could bother to get different syllables in there. By the end, I start to get angry and it grates on my nerves.

The packaging is minimal. Which was the effect intended; just a warning to those who really like detailed packaging. Although with lyrics in a made up language, it's hardly fair to expect or even desire a lyrics sheet.

The songs are so similar that there's really no point in going down the list. THe themes are different, but most of them have a very similar theme and structure. Most of the songs segue together, and if they do not it ends with singer saying "You sigh" in a tortured voice except on the last song. In the end, I really can't find very much that's exceptional about this album.

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