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It's tough to want to rate this any higher than 4 stars. The songwriting is solid. Everything sounds well performed. The final mix of the album has me conflicted. It sounds too compressed and filtered. Although the way this mix helps compliment the ambience of the record as a whole, there are certain parts where the drums sound like sticks banging on deep paper bags. Queens were at their peak when all of the instruments were rich and full. There's a certain lack of technical achievements that seems to derive from the way this album was recorded, and thus, feels like the band is beginning to simplify their talents to comply with the modern age of music production. Understandably, Queens has thrived off of musical evolution in every album they've released, but they've distanced themselves so far away from their roots to now have to reinvent their identity on every record they put out.