I think I didn't post here before because I usually don't review anything before trying/listening/using it for several days or weeks, so after a few weeks and several hundrets/thousands (?) of listens I can clearly say it's a masterpiece! I have to admit that some songs had to grow on me during the last weeks, but even these songs are among my favourites now. Great work there. I wish I had the ability to put feelings and emotions into something like these guys!

And I'm still impressed what impact CiL has on me. Maybe I'm getting old and soft..

aaawww, a soft wolf's heart ^^

Ouch!
It's quite sad for me, that my first post on those forums must be a negative response, but what can I do?

I would really love to like ToT, but after several (dozens?) listenings of it since march I can only say, that, in my case, it's definitely a miss
I can surely give credit to ToT's great sound and lyrics, which are skilfully written and intersting to read, but none of those songs (except, maybe, Running Out Of Time and Kamikaze Love) really touch me in a way that so many songs from POTF's previous albums did.

I don't want to listen and sing them non-stop time after time after time or memorize the lyrics and read them again and again to find every possible (or even impossible) hidden meaning behind those words. At least, that's what I did with most of the songs from Signs, CoR, RR and TT (as well as with 2 new things from Alchemy), and that's what made POTF my favourite band several years ago.

But not this time and not this album.
Happens, I guess

I have to agree with the previous poster on this one.. Songs are good but its not comparable to Signs of Life and COR. I could listen those for hours and hours but sadly I'm not getting the same vibe from this new album..

Poets is, probably, my all time favorite band and has been so from prior to the release of Carnival of Rust.

But this album is quite empty for me. Where is the attitude and funky lyrics, the catchy melodies, the crunchiness, and epic ballads about something else than love?
I can't really care about Temple of Thought. Their spree of killing albums stopped here. It's a shame. I can't help but thinking that they probably made the album too fast.. wasn't Twilight Theater released like a year ago?


Ps: I do like Jeremiah Peacekeeper, though.

No, Twilight Theater was released in 2010, from CoR they've been releasing new albums every two years with almost clockwork precision You probably meant Alchemy, but that was "only" compilation. So in my opinion it doesn't look like they hurried anything...

I find it interesting in a way how ToT is empty for some people yet others can find a lifetime of meaning it it...

Twilight Theater was released on March 17, 2010, the very day I registered on the forum.

Temple of Thought theme is love, and love is all that we need to survive in this cruel world...

Meaning, schmeaning. With "empty" I don't necessarily mean the lyrics, but my experience of the album. The feeling it generates and leaves you with. But yes, I think many of the lyrics are much more ordinary than on previous albums.


ps; fair enough, I was wrong about the release time. It just felt so recently.

I meant exactly the same thing, meaning, feeling it generates and the need to listen to it again and again, at least that's how it is in my case. I can understand disappointment if you're expecting something else though.

And agreed, lyrics are simpler, at least some parts of them, but I think one can still tell a good story with not-so-sophisticated words

For me, the lyrics of Temple of Thought have even more depth than on any of the other albums, but it speaks to me on so many levels, I can't even make a clear distinction here between lyrics and music and the feelings all this generates.
For me it's hard to imagine how these songs can not speak to you, but I understand that each one of us is different and the same songs do not speak to everyone. I'm just happy they do speak to me.

Same for me.

If I took apart The happy song from the beginning...
I love Temple of thought album. I like the melodies and I love the lyrics, which represent perfect love poems from my point of view. I can't make a comparison with the other albums and I can't say which one is the best. For me every album is different, the band's skills are oscillating at different levels, so unique. But Temple of thought album is the most touching one, without doubt. Each song makes you rise or fall... It's all about love and I was so enchanted to discover love from the first listening, I still am now. I find the lyrics very meaningful and if you know or you have known real love, it's impossible not to feel it arising from every string accord, every sentence. And the lyrics are maybe more simple, because too much hidden symbols or complicated words have no place there, when it's about love. The feelings are more important to be induced in straight means and I am moved by the way they are. It's like I am finding myself in front of a piece of art with every song. And as I am concerned, they have reached my soul. There's nothing else than desire, romance, sweetness, sensitivity and emotion comprised in a supreme sensation. Each song is created with refinement, a complete love story, deep, different and infinitely beautiful.

To me, Temple of Thought is the deepest, most personal album yet. I really did feel like I was taken by the hand and carried on an exceptional journey. The attitude is still there, but it's expressed with love in mind. Love was the vehicle they decided to use. The music and lyrics are still enshrouded with layers, just not as many. The Poets are exceptional storytellers. They will never tell you everything, but then, a good storyteller never does. He leaves out just enough to make you come back for more.

I will just clarify that I'm not saying ToT is a _bad_ album. But I feel it's a bit more _bland_ and poppy, with perhaps too similar sound on each track. And I'd like to see more acoustic stuff and some more real riffs and impact, and less cheesy synths and Coldplay-like guitar sounds.

Anyway, I've not lost respect for the band or anything. It's a decent product with a particular theme that I happen to not be very interested in (as say other POTF fans I know). So I hope for a little more of the old 'attitude' on the next album. The most important thing is that they keep rocking.

Funny, for me it's exact the opposite: I think there are too many layers and I kinda miss the SoL days where every song has a simple structure...

loving the album more and more, today i would rate it this way:

1. Revolution
2. Temple
3. Carnival
4. Signs
5. Twilight

Excelent album BUT!!!!!!
I'm really shocked that The Happy Song gets only 5%. Of course, da song is a little bit repetitive but it brings an agressivity, a new energy wich is really.. How can I say.. Surprising in a good way. Well, I appreciate the song, maybe because I'm also a Slipknot and Metal Music fan, but I think that some agressivs songs from Poets of the Fall could be really good, like a new breathe.
2 agressivs songs a album could be cool, don't you agree?
I say this, because I see that Craddled in Love became a clip, a single but well, I have to admit that the song is a little boring (even if, for some unknown reasons, I can't stop singing it when I hear it..).

I agree. And I like its repetitiveness, I mean, it is about being psycho. Both of them are somehow a bit abnormal things so don't they fit well together?

Even though I really don't listen to other heavy music apart from Poets' (& OGoA's (& Playground's)) production, their heaviest songs including The Happy Song have taken the highest places on my list. Or I can't list any of their songs but the heaviest songs belong to the most listened ones, they just fit my mood most often. I bet there's no band which makes better heavy music than POTF does.

I bet there's no band which makes better heavy music than POTF does.

how much are you willing to bet?

@BenAkenobi, everything - after all, it is my own opinion. I'm safe

^
but your phrasing directly implies you're talking about it as a fact. it might be useful to take into account that Poets aren't generally regarded as belonging in heavy music category, not even the hard rock. opinions are fine but general genre definitions cannot be ignored, can they?

I think POTF belongs to many different "genres" at the same time, depending on which song we're talking about. "Heavy music" isn't necessarily the same as "heavy metal" and I do think a few of POTF songs are somewhat heavy-is or hard rock-ish, but they're clearly not metal. While putting music to genres which most people can agree on makes discussion about music easier and you don't have to guess what some individual means by some term (for example classical cannot mean heavy metal in anyone's opinion), some terms have a little bit of a stretch to them depending on individual taste and opinion.
Usually statements such as "this and that is the best" are opinions, cos such statements are difficult to prove to be absolute facts.
But beware TheForeboding, opinions are prone to change... Maybe one day BenAkenobi will indeed win the bet if you find a band in the heavy category that you really really really love.

now i'm putting on various songs just to determine their "heavy factor"
i have to write down a chart with a 1-10 scale. this is going to be huge ☺

@BenAkenobi, I meant it as an opinion and I know I couldn't even do such a generalisation. I don't place POTF into any category either. I wrote only about Poets' heavier songs, not all of their songs (though they're all the best, not only those heavier ones, in my opinion) so I talked about 'heavy songs' because I didn't want to list them 'cause there are so many of them and, as I said, I can't categorize their music so it would be difficult, if not impossible to make a 'POTF's heavy songs' list. I'm very sorry if I wrote unclearly!

@DSoL, you're absolutely right. Actually, when I wrote my posts I thought that if my opinion's going to change someday. I'm really scared of that, not only because I'll lose the bet.
I just hope it will never happen.

yes, that wouldn't be easy. for example 3AM song. musically it's somewhat hard but lyrically it's so soft.

In my opinion, Poets of the Fall music is much too versatile and so spectacular different. This is what I so do love. It is simple beautiful in its abundant variety and I think it isn't necessary at all to categorize, just enjoy.

it's unnecessary but it's an extra challenge which can only lead to deeper understanding of music. after all, we've spent years "just enjoying", categorization is but a logical step forward.

Quite the opposite, huh? There's nothing more personal than your own musical taste, and I probably won't ever understand musical print (!) magazines trying to categorize/rate albums like "7/10" or "4/10". Same for genres. Categorizing a band "heavy metal" doesn't say anything about the audio material itself. There's so much variety in each genre, so categorizing simplifies instead of leading to deeper understanding IMO.

How'd you categorize "Cradled in Love"? I'm pretty sure however you'd put it (love song? Emo song? Ballad? Drama? Falsetto?) not having listened to it before and not knowing it's from PotF, I wouldn't be quite interested. But it's one of my favourites instead.

Categorization simplifies our life. If you are looking for similar bands, you watch the rock section, not the pop just because MDNA uses some guitar riffs in her albums. It's not about the accuracy, it's about making thing easier. It can't be perfect.
As for the scores, I use an average marks. If X likes pretty much the same as I do, I would check something he recommends. If Y likes Twilight movie craps, I would avoid what Y recommends.
Elementary

Now that we're totally off track with the topic, I'll pitch in some more (quickly).

I think you may be missing some possibly awesome recommendations from Y if you judge that person's taste by one thing that person happens to like and you happen to hate. I don't like nearly all recommendations I get from friends who love POTF (or something else that I love too), but some of them have been real jewels. Just because people's tastes differ doesn't mean there can be no common ground with anything at all.

this is exactly why i don't share the results of my ...experiment.
let me just say the average "heavy score" was 6.51
---and to de-derail a bit---
Temple of thought's average "heavy score" was 6.65