Just tried giving MTAE a re-listen

[Ihaguitar]

Monuments - 6
Zeitgeist - 4

And I have never listened fully to Oceanic or Tearguardian so I cannot rate them.

[fuzzyroes]

Zeitgeist 5.5
Teargarden 1.5
Oceania 3
Monuments 6
Solara/Silvery 4.5

[houseofglass11]

SP2 -
Zeitgeist - 7/10
Oceania - 6.5/10 (would be higher but Byrnes drumming...)
TGBK - 5/10
MTaE - 6.5/10
Ogilala - 7/10
OSBSV1NPNFNS - 5/10 so far

[eviltimeban]

Well for me, I would go:

Zeitgeist - 6/10: A pretty one dimensional album, which suffers from a bad mix with the vocals too high. But there are some very strong songs there. Bring The Light came on shuffle the other day and I thought it held up. I'm also a fan of "Doomsday Clock", that drum intro is amazing. "Tarantula" and "United States" are also worth the price of admission, as they say. The vocals ruin this album, but the drumming and stronger songs save it. And "Stellar" is a song that should've been on the album.

American Gothic - 5/10: It's alright, though I'm not a huge fan of the acoustic approach. It works for dreamy songs like "Obscured" and "Crush" but this is more like a pre-cursor to Ogilala. Saying that, I like "Pox" and "Sunkissed". On my iTunes album I've added "FOL", "GLOW", "Stellar", "Zeitgeist", "Superchrist", and a live take of "Gossamer" to make it more like an album. I'd rate all those songs quite highly, so that would've brought it up to about 7/10. I don't like "Death from Above" though. It sounds unmastered.

Teargarden - 5/10. I don't rate it as a project / album overall, but some of the individual songs are good. I see it more like a solo project than a band project. I like Song for A Son as it was released the day my second child was born, so that has a place in my heart (I don't listen to it much though). I'm one of the few who genuinely likes "Astral Planes", even though I'm aware of it's limitations (but it does feature congas). "Lightning Strikes" is also good, and again I'm in the minority of really liking "Owata". It's a great song.

Oceania - 7/10: Now we're getting there. For me, this would've been an 8/10 if it had included "Owata" and dropped "One Diamond One Heart". It feels like a "band" album, and though the drumming is overcooked and sounds terrible, the whole thing holds together. The vocals aren't too much in the forefront, and the likes of "Quasar" and "The Chimera" are a nice nod to the past. "Oceania" the title track promises a lot but doesn't quite deliver a classic SP epic, but it's still a worthy attempt.

MTaE - 4/10: The worst thing about this is the sound. It's mastered WAY too hot and everything is too crunchy. There's little warmth to the tones and there's no diversity in the guitar. Vocally it isn't bad though, just a pity the songs are a little too out there to be a comfortable fit with SP. "One and All" is very good, "Tiberius" reaches for it, but "Run 2 Me" is just bad. "Being Beige" is a bit Coldplay as someone said but it doesn't quite work, even though it isn't a bad song. "Monuments" is pretty good too, but could do without the synth. What's really missing here is one more song - something long, that sounds like a band jamming. But that's the problem here - this isn't a band. It's Billy and Tommy.

Shiny - 5/10: So far, these two songs are so-so. I find them hard to listen to as they ARE SO LOUD in the mastering. The drums sound terrible and there's no space for anything in the mix to breathe. Will hope for the remaining six (SIX!) tracks, that there's something there that sounds better or there's a few quieter moments.

[Ihaguitar]

Originally Posted by eviltimeban

Well for me, I would go:

Zeitgeist - 6/10: A pretty one dimensional album, which suffers from a bad mix with the vocals too high.

MTaE - 4/10: The worst thing about this is the sound. It's mastered WAY too hot and everything is too crunchy. There's little warmth to the tones and there's no diversity in the guitar.

Zeitgeist is DR05 and Monuments is DR06. Zeitgeist is a touch less dynamic. I find it worse to listen to.

[fluxequalsrad]

I can't think of a single album where the songs suck but it is otherwise "saved" by the drumming. I don't know how ya'll listen to music like this. This is how people become tool fans.

A good song can be ruined by poor drumming sure, but I'm not getting stoked on Jimmy going he-man unless its serving something actually good. (Jellybelly, Geek USA, etc.)

[eviltimeban]

Listen to the best song Mike drummed on and then listen to the worst song Jimmy drummed on.

[Shadaloo]

ZG - 6/10 - Some good songs in there. Bad production. Bad tracklist selection. Most of the good stuff off regular version of album.
Teargarden - 4/10 - Unfocused, cheesy, undercooked, quality varies wildly from song to song. Mostly unremarkable with a few surprisingly decent numbers. When it's bad it's horrible.
Oceania - 6/10 - Almost manages to feel like a fresh new start, but too long, overproduced, godawful drumming and absolutely unrelatable flowery quasi-poetry for lyrics. Still listenable on the whole, more or less.
MtAE - 2/10 - Uninspired bite-size dumbed down SP sound churned out to capitalize on Coldplay fans. Worst lyrics of Billy's career. Brief and forgettable. Feels like a really bad Cars tribute album. Actually hits unintentionally hilarious mark a few times. Nothing to say.
Ogilala -7/10 - Decent rainy-day background music album. Again with the flowery bad poetry, and it drags a bit, but it has a fair amount of listenable tracks, Archer probably best thing written in a clear decade.
Not rating Shiny as it's only two tracks in yet, one blah, one quite good.

[ninsp]

ZG 5/10 - I loved it out of denial. Listening back, two good songs, best songs weren’t even released. The mastering/production is like St. Anger. It feels so disconnected.
Gothic 2.5/10 - lmao
Teargarden 5/10 - Tom Tom is good.
Oceania 7.5/10 - Excellent album, bad drumming. Easily the most intriguing and solid SP2 album.
Monuments 3/10 - Tiberius and the tone of One and All are good. Oh and the tone of Dorian

[Zer0 Hour]

St. Anger is a good comparison with Zeitgeist, in terms of the production and the generic "We're trying to sound like ourselves!" song composition and production. That approach always fails because people can see through it. But yeah, I loved it out of denial back then too. After a few months, I saw it for what it was.

[Ihaguitar]

I think when you say production you mean mastering.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by Ihaguitar

I think when you say production you mean mastering.

not likely since Zeitgeist is not mastered anything like how the 90s albums were

what are you even talking about

[redbreegull]

BTW, ITT there seems to be some kind of strong correlation between how bad a poster is and how high they rate Monuments. Right in a row up there we have Fuzzy, House of Ass, and Ihaguitar all give it a 6 something

[FoolofaTook]

Fuzzrod, House of Ass, hmm... we need a good nickname of Yeehawgeetar.

[ninsp]

Originally Posted by Ihaguitar

I think when you say production you mean mastering.

I mean that combined, the production and mastering both remind me of St. Anger where everything is metallic, disconnected and fatiguing to listen to.

The production is god awful with the dry vocals, guitars sounding like they’re being played in a toilet bowl, and fuck even Jimmy sounds off. In mastering it was all flattened out removing any punch from anything and given this metallic, brick walled sheen.

[killtrocity]

Better than Teargarden because of TIBERIUS, and TBK is possibly the worst collection of music ever assembled . Drum and Fife is ok. Dorian is ok but too redundant. Same with One and All or whatever. Can't remember the rest.

[killtrocity]

Apparently drop D and a weird time signature = TOOL... Which is sort of an embarrassing band to hold up as an ideal if you're an adult. Billy is into numerology and shit so it was probably intentional. Which is even more embarrassing. I kid, Tool is ok. Sort of.