that first album was so fucking dark and cool and weird and as i think ive mentioned before Dr. Know from Bad Brains does the solo on Time Consumer (fucking dope)
second album was also good, love seeing a band progress in a way that makes sense and stays true to themselves; third album was basically their breakout success (thanks guitar hero), and then every album got fucking weird and overproduced and just generally sucked. like i can kinda get into a couple one-off tracks from later albums, but man, its all pretty meh. does anyone like their newer shit?
not tryna hate, i just hadent listened to this band in like half a decade, came back to their debut and was just like “wow second stage turnbine blade is really, really good. what happened?”
As far as I understand it, their albums are more like a sci-fi rock opera than a traditional album. It’s the reason for the kind of odd roman numeral titling of the tracks and book-like album titles. I think there’s also been some comic book adaptations of the story since it’s mostly incomprehensible if you’re just listening to their albums.
To be honest, I haven’t checked out any of their new stuff since at least the early 2010’s but it really wouldn’t surprise me if they got lost in the sauce a bit creatively given the scope and length of time of the project.