You can’t win them all. Hopeless have a pretty good roster and a solid release schedule. But this is, pardon the pun, hopeless. It’s just dreadful. Prog-rock – Kiss meets Hatebreed meets Thrice – to the extreme with a lot of nonsense thrown in, I would imagine this is the kind of record you write if you take too many drugs* Clearly The Human Abstract are clever guys and talented too, but this record is messy and incoherent in a way that just doesn’t work. There’s riffs for riffs sake and the shredding is sometimes over complicated and not needed. The vocals go from one extreme to another. The drums, well the drummer’s a super talented dude but it just doesn’t fit. It’s all a mess. This isn’t my kinda thing, granted, but even I know this is a pile of steaming crap.
* Disclaimer – I’m not saying these guys take drugs, don’t sue me.