The 2019 Arsies: February 13, 2019

February 13, 2019

Emotion	●●●	●●●
Memorability	●●●	●●●
Replayability	●●●	●●●
Innovation	●●○	●●●
Pace	●●●	●●○
Shredding	●●●	●●○
Vocals	●●●	●●●
Production	●●●	●●○
	✓

Our last Quartefinal match turned out much closer than I thought it would... but I should've known better. While I truly adore both these albums, and both represent the bands' best work to date (RIP Textures BTW), and while Dualism still feels more innovative, unique, and joyously multifaceted, BTBAM simply outgunned Textures with Parallax 2. One additional realization that speaks volumes: the Textures album feels longer, even though it's a full sixteen minutes shorter than the BTBAM. That's never a good sign. So, with a heavy heart, I bid farewell to Textures and congratulate BTBAM for making the most of their second chance.
And that's it for the Quarterfinals! Tomorrow, the first of our two Semifinal matches will put me in the unenviable position of having to decide between The Human Abstract and TesseracT. Yah, I'm cryin' all the way to the friggin' metal bank.