II = I

Upon first listen to II = I I was both shocked and dismayed. After the excellent Extension of the Wish I had very very high hopes for Andromeda and their next release. From the first opening strains of Encyclopedia I knew that I wasn't gonna enjoy this even half as much as I had hoped. In my mind at least the melodic appeal of Extension was gone and in its place was something I found cold and callous to my ears. Since the recordings of Extension of the Wish Andromeda has recruited new vocalist David Fremberg, and while he does an admirable job, it might be fact I am so used to Lawrence Mackrory's singing that Fremberg just doesn't fit well with me. Yes, I do know that there is a re-released version of Extension with David on vocals, I still need to pick it up. I still remember the first time I heard the first track on Extension The Words Unspoken, I remember how fresh and invigorating it sounded and I was hoping for another such killer track on II = I but instead it was a smorgasboard of technical show offism. The same sense of passion and feeling that were in every passage on the debut just wasn't there anymore. I was hoping the next track would be better but alas Mirages is my least liked of the album. It just seemed rather plodding until a little after the three minute mark when it erupts into some more absurd "progressiveness". Other tracks that didn't appeal to me were One in My Head, Morphing into Nothing, and Reaching Deep Within. Unlike Extension which had an abundance of melodic hooks and uplifting passages, the rest of the tracks on here seem to be a showcase to display the musicians technical appeals and they seemd to lose strength of the song as a whole. The rest of the songs on here are similar to the two openers, some start of quiet and are rather enjoyable then just go off into tangents which I apparently do not like at all judging by my score. Castaway is decently good, I actually enjoyed it, it had some very good singing and was pretty atmospheric and worked out well. I just wish the band had kept things not balldesque the whole album but more refined, more focused. Like I said earlier, a big part of it is most likely me loving Extension of the Wish so maybe I was expecting something like that, but in the end I was both saddened and dissapointed by the way I recieved II = I. I'm sure there are many people out there who will love this album, if you like extremely technical music that sacrifices feeling for skill, then by all means help yourself, you'll get a kick out of this.