[earlessdog]

Originally Posted by DKelly

My friend and I both agree that there are a few similarities musically and instrumentally between Terminate Damnation and some old In Flames songs.

As of yet, I have not found a band out there that is at all similar to the sound on The Physics of Fire.

i disagree, i have heard so much more metal that i would say sounds like TPOF than TD. Once again, myself, but TPOF is a lot more just straight metal, nothing different about it.

[earlessdog]

Ok, in the last few days, i've practically gotten BTA overdose. I've been listening to both albums back to back to make a 'final' decision of what i think.
I deleted my last review, and this will be my new and hopefully final one.

I'll attack the vocals first: The general scream/growl gets almsot boring, there is no variety in vocals like there was in TD. Its all the same pitch, nearly.
And the clean vocals. I dont' moan about them anymore, though I still would have preferred none, and I still think it ruins more songs than it makes. Not that the style of them sucks, i think its great that they are doing something different, but the vibrato gets annoying, and they just don't fit usually.

Secondly, the lead guitar: I am still not impressed with originality on lead. Sure, its insane fast, but its the same thing over and over again throughout the CD. That same gradual, wannabe dramatic, lightning fast solos, with a terrible tone. you can barely tell the difference between the solos, and half of the time the temp is slowed down to 0 when the solos come.

Honestly, the songs aren't that different from each other, its not repetative, but, its just "safe" from beginning to end.

But, the rythm is definetly top notch, awesome stuff.

Lyrics are awesome.

With that being said, it doesn't live up to TD in several ways (for me) but its still an album far out of the league of nearly every other metal band i've heard. Its obviously incredible stuff with a lot of talent, and this is one of the greatest metal bands i've heard.
But, just not as good as TD.
Maybe I'm just not happy with the arrival of Alex, I liked the old guitarist's style a lot more.

So, once again, it may seem like i'm making this cd sound terrible, i'm just comparing it to their previous, this album alone is far better than almsot everything i've heard, though ireally don't like the lead.

So, FINALLY, I have decided to vote on it.
I vote 9.

[Mr. claw]

Originally Posted by earlessdog

Secondly, the lead guitar: I am still not impressed with originality on lead. Sure, its insane fast, but its the same thing over and over again throughout the CD. That same gradual, wannabe dramatic, lightning fast solos, with a terrible tone. you can barely tell the difference between the solos, and half of the time the temp is slowed down to 0 when the solos come.

I seriously can only listen to like, 3 songs off this cd because I can't tolerate the solos in all of the others.

Outside of the solos, this is a better album than TD. But...there lies the problem.

On another note, I don't really mind that he didn't growl/shriek on this cd. It wasn't bad on TD, but it really wasn't that great, especially the growling. I've heard way better in the low pitched category.

[ice_wiz]

I'm pretty much with deafmutt on this one.

The CD was no where near where Terminate Damnation was. The clean vox were great considering all of the emo singing in metal these days. But the solos all sounded the same and all went the same speed in the same neck pickup tone, but like everyone said the rhythm was superb. If they change the solos and and add more range in the screaming and keep getting more proggressive the next album should be better.

[DreamersImperia]

Originally Posted by ice_wiz

The CD was no where near where Terminate Damnation was. The clean vox were great considering all of the emo singing in metal these days. But the solos all sounded the same and all went the same speed in the same neck pickup tone, but like everyone said the rhythm was superb. If they change the solos and and add more range in the screaming and keep getting more proggressive the next album should be better.

I totally agree here. :P

This cd in no way can match up to what BTA unleashed with their debut. And I've got another thing to add to the strikes against the cd... I don't know if you all have either noticed and didn't say anything, or just flat-out didn't notice, but this cd has like NO BASS! It literally hurts my hears to listen to it because the guitars have no depth to them. You can't hear Jason's playing at all with the exception of a few places throughout the cd. Listen to a song from TD then switch to a song from this cd, you'll see (hear) a huge difference in the tone of the guitars. It's almost like they forgot to put the bass in the final mix.

And the vocals--There's absolutely no depth to Jason's voice, as was mentioned earlier. And Alex... he just didn't have a very good impression on me.

Solos--I didn't mind the solos, but they do get repetitive after a while. TD's solos were far better, ESPECIALLY the solos for The Epigone and Ex Nihilo.

The lyrics are great, especially the Epilogue in the final minutes of The Balance Of Eternity, and this is perhaps the only sure-fire plus that this cd has in my opinion.

So call me a hater or a nonconformist, but I gave this one a 6.

But even though I don't like this cd anywhere NEAR as much at TD, I still listen to it from time to time, because afterall, BTA is still my next favorite metal band under Haste The Day.

[Mistidon]

Actually, talkng to Alex on the official BTA forums, thats exactly what happened, the low mid got dropped out of the mix for some reason, so that's my biggest complaint against the album. That and Wisdom's repititous vocals compared to his awesome variety on TD. Another interesting thing Seth mentioned, is that he wrote most of the solos, and Alex played them so *shrug* I enjoyed them, but I can see where they do sound kind of similar. One thing I think gets looked over alot, is Duck's drumming on this one, which I think is some of the best drumming I have heard on a metal album to date. He is really solid, and throws some awesome grooves in there, with enough fills to make it interesting, but not overwhelmingly so. He also rarely falls back on the repetitive blast beats so many bands are spamming these days. I enjoyed the clean vox a lot as well, I thought they were very tastefully done, Second Death comes to mind especially. I really really liked the lyrics and the keys, and I can't wait what they do with the next album now that Alex and Seth are more used to working together!