There seems to be a serious shortage of Arcturus fans here, apart from Klarth and myself.
Anyway, my second reaction (the first being complete, utter bliss - it is Arcturus, after all) to the album was, "wtf? this new singer is... off-key". I thought Garm was absolutely fantastic on The Sham Mirrors (still haven't listened to a lot of La Masquerade Infernale), but was... disappointed. The new singer seemed to do a sort of... nasal, throaty wail. Then Klarth told me he was Vortex of Dimmu Borgir. I'd heard him sing a little bit on the song Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse (and I think on some Borknagar songs) and loved it, so I'm confused. The weird thing is, his vocals have been well-received so far by the general community.
Well, I'm still happy with the album. It doesn't seem quite as good as The Sham Mirrors so far, but I'm very impressed nonetheless. Especially by Hellhammer's inhumanly fast bass-drumming in Hibernation Sickness Complete and Shipwrecked Frontier Pioneer. :)
Which brings me to the song titles. They're weird. Enough said.
comment plz
I'm going to buy this as soon as it's available. I already have it, but... The only good quality track I have is "Hibernation Sickness Complete", whereas the others are early studio recordings, and half of the last track is missing. I'm going to buy this the day it arrives over here.
On another note: Best song titles ever.