The Focusing Blur

I don't feel the need to provide background information, and boring you, so I'll cut to the review.

This album is an easy contender for the best of 2004 already. If you like Vintersorg, there is no way you can go wrong here, and even if you don't/haven't heard them, you MUST check this album out.

The album is conceptual. For the most part, It's about scientific advancements.

1) Prologue - 8.5/10 Excellent intro. Contains a few tunes and lyrics that will be found in future songs. Overall relaxing, and gets you into the mood.

2) The Essence - 9.5/10 first real song, and it's killer. Beginning with classic Vintersorg acoustic guitars, before bursting into the black metal side of Vintersorg with a nice riff and some nicely done black vox. The song goes back and forth, and has a progressive feel to it, something you will notice in this album a lot more than Vintersorg's earlier work. The clean sung "chorus-ish" part is the highlight of the song. Overall very very good.

3) The Thesises Seasons - 8.5/10 Dont worry about this being an album that begins well and falls apart, because it never happens. In fact, I find the second half of the album to be stronger. The Thesises Seasons lets you know that this will be a consistant album. Awesome basslines in song. mostly clean sung.

4) Matrix Odyssey - 8/10 Actually probably the worst song on the album. Hearing this song and imagining it as the worst on the album will leave you confused at first. A very good song, with a cool riff that reminds me a lot of something Edge of Sanity (Dan Swano) would write. Very nice solo near the end. Just happens that everything else is THAT good.

5) Star Puzzled - 8.25/10 A very fast paced song, probably my favorite vocal effort as far as the clean vocals go. Very very nicely done here. This song never really stays in one direction, always great, but never really super amazing.

6) A Sphere in a Sphere - 9.5/10 Here we go. What a song this one is. begins with an excellent guitar solo before a small clean sung verse, leading into the very powerful chorus. The chorus is done over a great acoustic riff and is extremely catchy. This is the first song on the album that seems more guitar based than bass based, which is really nice to have in the middle of the album.

7) A Microscopical Macrocosm - 10/10 Wow. You can never give enoguh credit to a band for fitting the words "A Microscopical Microcosm" into a well flowing chorus, nevermind the fact that it is THE CATCHIEST CHORUS EVER. Beleive me. You'll be singing the chorus all day. This song just plain needs to be heard. a lot more folk based than the rest of the album.

8) Blindsight Complexity - 9/10 Killer riff, a little more black metal based than AMM, but still regular Vintersorg switching it up. Very nice follow up to AMM.

9) Dark Matter Mystery - 9/10 Again a mostly clean sung song. Overall an extremely entertaining song. Nothing really new here. Same old excellent bass and vocals. There's even the beginning of the killer bassline to Epilogue thrown in here a few times. Overall excellent song.

10) Curtains - 10/10 Here it is. The best Vintersorg song ever, and one of the best songs ever. Just plain everything is in this song. Awesome riff, amazing bass, excellent clean vocals, excellent black vocals, and of course the ultimate Vintersorg moment, the "Drunken rambling sounds like Pink Floyd's The Trial part" This is the first time I've mentioned the keyboardist, but excellent job here. The combination of that crazy tune and the insane vocals make this part (which happens multiple times) just plain perfect.

11) Artifacts of Chaos - 7.5/10 Eh, it's more of a segue than it is a song. nothing special, just something between the amazing Curtains and the amazing Epilogue to stop you from creaming yourself.

12) Epilogue - 9.5/10 Excellent excellent excellent. The bassline here is just perfect. The lyrics reflect a lot on the album. The clean vocals along with this awesome bassline just makes a simple yet extremely effective song. One hell of a closer.

Any fan of music really should get this album. There's something for the folk fan, something for the BM fan, something for the prog fan, and everything for the Vintersorg fan. I will be extremely happy if something comes out in 2004 that beats this, because I dont anything short of a new Pain of Salvation or Agalloch will do the trick.

Highlights: Curtains, A Microscopical Macrocosm, A Sphere in a Sphere, Epilogue. Best listened to as an album though.