notes i made in November;
there are two 5.1 mixes on this disc, one is the studio album and the other is a 2018 live performance, both in Dolby Digital.
neither mix is wildly different from the other (in fact i could've sworn elements from the studio 5.1 were reused in the Live 5.1..!?) the most obvious difference being the Live mix has lead vocals reverbed in the Rears.
kinda on the fence about the surround sound on the whole thing tbh. the mix is effective in parts but kinda unusual.. synth pads and little drum parts are isolated in the Centre (rather than vocals) so its rather sparse in that channel a lot of the time but those same parts that are dry in the Centre channel are also spread out to the Rears with some reverb.. like I said it's an unusual effect..
..some tracks feel like double stereo but there are discrete things happening popping up around the channels all the time, which are kinda cool.. other tracks have really nice front to back separation going on ("Fading Senses" in particular is lovely).
musically i rather enjoyed it, it's proggy, at times dramatic and rocky, there's oodles of suitably heroic guitar work, then its delicate, then its kick-ass again, its a bit of a kitchen sink affair, certainly never dull, there's a lot of light and shade going on.. sonically i think its biggest sins are some of the keyboards sound tinkly and cheap like a Casio or something and it's got "crisp-packet drum syndrome" (to me in places the drums sound thin and artificial) but they're not deal breakers in and of themselves.. i need to give it a few more
plays, it's not terrible by any means but it's not amazing.. in a QQ Poll i'd be in "7" territory so far i think, after a few more plays may just nudge into "8" as the surround sound (unorthodox as it is) helps propel the whole thing on.
