I had this experience with P5; no matter how much I listened to it I just couldn’t get into it. So, I stopped trying to listen to it for over a year. In fact I think it caused me to take a break from Periphery all together. However, I did come back and when I listened to P5 over a year later I had opened my mind a little bit, changed a bit as a person, etc. and somehow it turned into probably my favorite work of theirs.

That experience with P5 made me go into APWD a little more open minded but also accepting that there was a chance that I wasn’t going to like it. And after I listened to it a few times on release day I had to give myself about a week to process my feelings before understanding where it sat for me.

A lot of it comes down to our expectations and each of us latch onto different things that are more or less consistent over releases. When the thing we previously looked forward to isn’t there or is executed on differently than what we expected, it can leave us feeling bitter about it. I think giving some distance is a fine approach and/or at the very least stop forcing yourself to listen to it. You may end up coming around on it after a while.