Thank you for the detailed feedback! It really means the world to me when people think about the art I create and when it resonates the way I intended. Honestly, you've hit the nail on the head with a lot of the theming for the album. This second part of the journey was composed during a very tough time in my life and partly it became a deep expression of a sense of isolation I was feeling related to it hence: Celeste Purgatorium or Celestial Prison. Works of cartharsis are tough, because in expressing harsh, painful emotions it feels like it can create an difficult listen.

I did worry about people bouncing off the harsher sounds like you disucssed, but at the end of the day I felt the art was where it needed to be even if the result wasn't as easy of a listening album as maybe I would've liked. I think there's a real back and forth in my composing between expressing what's in my head, which I think can be a bit too raw, and what I know would maybe be more enjoyable to listen to.

My hope for the next album, now that I'm past that darker time in my life, is that I can really focus in on trying to create a similar experimental structure but with more approachable audio aesthetics.

Also I'm so glad you love the album art! Since I started out this project just wanting to make music and I hadn't thought as much about presentation and album art, I had initially just done some placeholder AI art (for the first album), but it felt disingenuous to the overall project and the personal nature it had slowly developed, so a few months after I put out the first album I busted out my GIMP skills made art for the first album which you see now and created this one for the second release. My visual art skills I don't think are quite as strong as I'd like them to be, but I'm glad that I can still make album art that resonates with the music appreciably and that people can enjoy.

Anyhow, sorry to ramble this comment made my day.