This album sort of has an up-down feeling for me. It's like the best part of the album is in the middle, where the first two songs build up to greatness and the last few sort of fizzle out, leaving the outstanding tracks-in my opinion the excellent triumvirate of "Shining Finger", "Ticking Time and String" and "Footsteps in the Distance". What makes me lower the overall rating a little is the grating vocal delivery-that is, the harsher style. The cleaner, more sorrowful vocal tones (and especially the narrative pieces) are well-refined and contribute greatly to the accompanying musicianship, which is the main reason why the aforementioned songs are favourite cuts from the album. There are moments of musical beauty here too.

I don't know what they've done or how they've done it, but Envy have really been hitting my sweetspot with this one.