Altars of Madness

A good album in a discography full of great ones.

An absolute masterpiece from start to finish. Every track earns its place.

I go back and forth on this — some days it's a 4, some days it's a 4.5. The inconsistency in my own feelings about it probably reflects the slight inconsistency of the album itself. But at its best, this is breathtaking.

Not sure what happened here. Their previous work was so strong and this feels like a significant step backward. The songwriting is lazy, the production is overwrought, and the whole thing feels phoned in. A couple of decent tracks don't save it.

I wanted this to be better than it is. The ingredients are all there — the talent, the ambition, the production budget — but it never quite gels into something greater than the sum of its parts. Still a pleasant enough listen though.