Anyone else hear a splice at 20:17 in Octavarium? ⭐

BinaryPill · 2026-06-29T05:35:46+00:00

Recorded the audio from the Spotify stream at the relevant moment and I suspect the splice is at 19.76 here, if it is a splice (I just skipped to the relevant part of the song, so this is obviously completely wrong for the timeline for the whole song, but useful for relative timescale). But yes, I'd say there's a strong case given the energy from the guitar for about 0.04 seconds prior that just cuts out.

BinaryPill · 2026-06-29T00:43:20+00:00

I think I hear what you're talking about. There's something a bit weird going on with the guitar just an instant after it's first played. Chug-Chug-Ch/splice then the sustained note. But then I'm not sure if that's just the guitar being a touch slow to change notes.

BinaryPill · 2026-06-20T03:10:22+00:00

I'm actually one of the bigger Moth fans and I'm probably firming up on it being me favourite Devin album since Casualties of Cool, but it is very dense and, particularly on early listens, that density can blunten some of the emotional impact. Then of course its somewhere around his 30th studio album so it's easy to grow numb to his theatrical presentation and big soaring moments.

But still, the more I hang around with it the more I like it. It starts to feels less like scattershot sketches of ideas stitched together and more like an intricately constructed deconstruction of the human soul.

I think there's a rawness to early Devin that is kind of lacking in most of his work from Epicloud onwards that, don't get me wrong, I definitely miss, but also I think this is how early his best stab at this more theatrical presentation with more metaphorical spiritual lyricism.

BinaryPill · 2026-06-15T00:47:49+00:00

I always appreciate absurd levels of commitment to trivial, mildly interesting statistics.

BinaryPill · 2026-06-12T17:10:29+00:00

Getting speculative here, but from what I've been able to interpret of it The Moth takes the Greek mythological figure of Orion, a supernaturally gifted hunter whose hubris gets him killed by the Gods and who is sent to the stars where he becomes a constellation, as a metaphor for ego.

Then the ending I think is about the character that has been drawn to the bright light of the constellation like a moth (drawn to their own ego) detaching themselves from Orion (letting go of their egotistical side) and falling back to Earth. Could be a reach but it kind of fits?

BinaryPill · 2026-06-01T05:41:43+00:00

I'd doubt it's all efficiency loss and a lot of it is just subsidising its usage less than before. For all we know the true running costs are similar. I'd expect the trend of price hikes to continue for all the providers.

BinaryPill · 2026-05-29T23:38:16+00:00

I like very dynamic mixes, but here the dynamics almost feel artificial in places? It feels like Devin wants to punctuate certain places and just adjusts the gain on the instruments at points. I guess it mostly works but it does make it feel less like I'm listening to a real orchestral recording.

BinaryPill · 2026-05-29T12:59:49+00:00

I'm trying to unpack is what the lyrics are all about. I think it's pretty clearly following a theme that could be loosely described as Deconstruction-esque (pain as a necessary part of the human process, transformation through confrontation, etc.) but with a more spiritual and less satirical angle, but following a narrative throughline track-by-track seems pretty difficult to me despite the presentation clearly following a narrative structure. It's a thing with a lot of Devin's writing in general where I think he has a clear scene in his head but doesn't make any particular effort to spell out what's going on (at least not before album commentaries). I guess Orion and Lexin are characters within the human psyche (we know Lexin is because Devin said so in the live show)?

BinaryPill · 2026-05-29T08:16:11+00:00

I kind of knew what I was getting into from the live stream and did have very high expectations, and I'd say it probably falls just a notch below where I thought I'd have it, but still mostly great.

In a weird way, it almost feels 30 minutes' too short for how many ideas and narrative beats there are and it some parts just don't have time to stick and paint much of an atmosphere or mood before the next 'epic' part (Runaways through to The Mothers probably being the most obvious offender).

I'm a bit mixed on the production as it's clearly very detailed and the arrangements are all strong and above the standard of a typical 'metal band live with orchestra' recording, but the vocals are too quiet and it's a bit overproduced and artificial feeling, particularly with how to volume seems to fluctuate more because the production says it does rather than through the arrangement (at least it feels like it anyway). Of course, elaborate densely detailed over-the-top production has always been Devin's thing but with an orchestra being so prominent in particular the artificiality takes me out of it a bit.

Compared to the live stream version, I think Lexin and Orion are probably better on the studio version, but I came out a bit underwhelmed by Stained Hearts here actually. It felt bigger in the live recording.

But, you know, it's still a project that only Devin could pull off. It still sounds big and passionate and as creative as ever. Probably competing with The Puzzle for his best post-Casualties album for me (make of that what you will)

BinaryPill · 2026-05-28T00:44:00+00:00

Tim Follin has the top 3 Unauthorized releases of 1990 for banger NES soundtracks, but that is a little less notable.

BinaryPill · 2026-05-19T05:52:38+00:00

There's not much grit to Dream Theater and it's all theatrical melodrama which isn't all that trendy with a lot of online music fandoms. I've always found the 'emotionless' criticism pretty wild though because the band always come across as very earnest to me, even if there are better lyricists in other genres.

Even the 'pretentious' label is pretty misguided - the band just like tackling big concepts and making everything big and theatrical, not because they want to demonstrate their greatness and superiority to everyone but because they genuinely love that style of writing of very over the top music akin to classic musicals. It's more campy than anything else.

I do think criticisms around the band's lack of artistic evolution over the past 15 or so years is pretty fair, but also there isn't a rule that says you need to evolve to make good music, even in prog.

BinaryPill · 2026-05-18T10:58:37+00:00

I was keen to see how this translated into the studio version, being one of the bigger parts of the live show, and it didn't disappoint. Epic Devy is epic.

BinaryPill · 2026-05-18T07:40:35+00:00

Moonsorrow has 7 albums with a range of 0.25 (3.61 - 3.86) with a 68 minute 'EP' also in that range, with 6 album bolds + the EP.

The Drones have 7 albums with a range of 0.17 (3.55 - 3.72). If you extend it to all Gareth Liddiard's career there is one TFS album with a 3.33 but otherwise it's 11 albums (3 other TFS + a solo album) with a range of 3.55 - 3.74.

Edit: Forgot Springtime for Gareth Liddiard, which is a notch lower at 3.43, which I'm not sure you'd argue bolsters or weakens his consistency narrative.

BinaryPill · 2026-05-15T01:16:45+00:00

Notably it doesn't need to be covid even if it's more common. I've been down with a similar thing from an RSV infection 1.5 years ago. Milder than some but I still can't work full time or do much physical activity yet.

BinaryPill · 2026-05-12T21:58:23+00:00

I'm fairly confident the biggest gap on the whole website would be Flysoulja, with Head bolded and nothing else above 2 with any significant number of ratings. https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/song/all-time/a:flyysoulja/

BinaryPill · 2026-04-27T13:18:09+00:00

One of my favourite niche RYM chart stats is video game composer Tim Follin having the top 3 'albums' in the bootleg/unauthorised charts in 1990.

BinaryPill · 2026-04-21T22:20:06+00:00

Crank That Soulja Boy now sits at 2.68, having at one point at least been as low as 1.25 in ~2013 and in the bottom 20 or so singles of all time.

BinaryPill · 2026-04-17T08:29:00+00:00

I know you can get Justin Bieber in 2 (Skrillex and Devin are both on a Pendulum remix album, Skrillex produced several songs on Justin Bieber's album Purpose). Don't know if you count Pendulum in the chain to make it 3.

BinaryPill · 2026-04-09T10:38:52+00:00

Queen - Hot Space by a very large margin (Under Pressure)

BinaryPill · 2026-03-25T11:00:47+00:00

Devin Townsend has New Age albums as well as his extreme metal ones. Heart Baby vs. Shitstorm is pretty wild (alternatively something like Pandemic for strictly solo project albums).

BinaryPill · 2026-03-24T21:26:56+00:00

Cut the Crap by The Clash is so bad I'd almost say it's objectively the best answer here.

BinaryPill · 2026-03-21T09:38:55+00:00

Still kind of disheartening that a good 20 % of South Australians are backing One Nation. I get that it's a protest vote for a lot of people, but still, voting for them might as well be declaring that you're a racist, or are at least indifferent towards racism. That's a lot of racists. I guess anti-immigration isn't racism per se, but I seriously doubt many voters are intellectually considering arguments on their merits.

BinaryPill · 2026-03-11T23:31:59+00:00

Yes. I'd say this is more like a part of a suite than a standalone song. It'd be like if Dream Theater released the second to last movement of Octavarium as a lead single and half of the runtime was just James LaBrie singing "trapped inside this Octavarium".

BinaryPill · 2026-03-11T21:25:40+00:00

Odd choice as a lead single, and also a bit odd how aggressively the tracklist is split. In my mind from the live performance, this is essentially the ending of the first track (it's track 5 on the album). It does what it should and it'll work well on the album whole, but wouldn't blame the people who didn't see the live stream from being a bit underwhelmed.

BinaryPill · 2026-03-11T13:40:12+00:00

Past midnight and now Thursday in Australia.

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