Islands is only starting to grow on me after three or four listens because I'm just now getting used to the shorter song format or the absence of motifs that I hear throughout the record. On the other hand and as far as comfort prog goes, the Forevermore version (the only one I've listened to so far) hit all the marks right away. That might be because it's formulaic, but then again people read series Mystery because it's formulaic. It's got big melodies, a lot of Roine's singing and playing, and generally some of the epic things I didn't hear on the Flower Kings album.
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