After two listens, 'Lessons', 'Hold On' and 'Lucky Animals' are my snooze moments. Everything else is fantastic.

I was very surprised by True North. I think I expected an explosive, totally easy start - especially with Effervescent and then the poppy beginning of True North... and then it went into something that could almost fit on Decon (at least that was the first, immediate impression).

Lucky Animals... yeah, got boring very fast, except for the motorcycle part which is totally awesome. And the "wind is in my lack of hair" from the listening party cracks me up everytime.

[swervedriver]

Of all the tracks I think I like Where We Belong best. New Kingdom works well too. Overall I'm finding it better than Addicted.

For all the early listeners who said it was Addicted + Infinity, you were all absolutely right (IMO). While Infinity and Addicted are my #1 & #2 of Dev product, this is easily the child of them. It really does sound like it would be the follow-up album to the band that made Addicted. Well, technically it was, but, y'know -- if Addicted were some random band's debut, this would sound exactly like #2. Okay, okay, it *is*, but... whatever.

I have to agree that Where We Belong doesn't have as much resonance as the demos, but there's an obvious reason for that, I think: It's soaring, beautiful, melodic, wonderful... but a 1 trick pony, musically. It's not whisper to a scream, it's whisper to a louder whisper and I doubt there's a single person on the forums who didn't play the ever-loving-shit out of the youtube video/youtube rip. It was a harbinger, so as pretty as the song is, the love of it was the direction it heralded. It was coming, but it was bringing friends, and now we're all like "it's cool, I've been seeing you every day, but your friends are AWESOME!".

It's too simple to be shiny -- that's it's appeal, but when you've got a new album and Liberation rips on and you've had a double espresso and you want to start
screaming "LET'S ROCK!" in the face of a random 5 year old holding a popsicle... well....

I keep hearing about this demo version of "Where We Belong," but I can't say I've ever heard it. Would anyone care to point or link me to it in some fashion?

[swervedriver]

I keep hearing about this demo version of "Where We Belong," but I can't say I've ever heard it. Would anyone care to point or link me to it in some fashion?

[youtube]lYgELzPf6fA[/youtube]

I keep hearing about this demo version of "Where We Belong," but I can't say I've ever heard it. Would anyone care to point or link me to it in some fashion?

[youtube]lYgELzPf6fA[/youtube]

Thanks. Though, having now heard it, I don't get the backlash against the album version. To my ears, they sound relatively the same. Close enough, at least, for it to baffle me that people could love one and react so negatively to the other. Maybe it's just a matter of people liking what they heard first more, as someone in here already suggested.

True North: There's some really good ideas at work here (particularly the "Hey there, what has come into your royal mind?" and "Where do we go from here?" sections), but all these separate ideas and parts feel too 'thrown-together' to me, much like 'Jupiter' on Physicist. It all comes across a little messy and unstructured. Still, very good.

Where We Belong: For whatever reason, the demos and live acoustic versions posted before the album's release sounded better than this final version. Well, maybe not better, but I just don't feel this song works when it's as big and overblown as Epicloud is.

Been thinking the same about these two. It's kinda bugging me that the demo version on WWB sounded better. Oh well still a quality track.

Yeah, I would agree on True North, it does kinda feel thrown together to me, too. But I also see that it's other people's favorite song, so to each their own. I

In my experience, I often prefer the version of the song that I've heard first, whether it was a live bootleg, demo, or the album version. So if I hear the demo first, then the album version may seem kind of stiff and lifeless or overproduced in comparison. On the other hand, if I hear the album version first, the demo may seem kind of sloppy in comparison. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the version I hear first sets the tone by which I will mentally compare any subsequent versions.

Yeah, this is definitely true. It's like with Kingdom: the new version is technically better than the Physicist version in every way - vocals, production, etc - but I still have a sort of unconditional love for the original, to the point that I couldn't say I prefer one to the other.

But people seem to be taking what I said about WWB the wrong way; I'm not reacting in a hugely negative way to the album version - it's still a great track - but I just liked it better when it wasn't so, well, overblown. It was almost more emotive when it was more stripped-down.

I keep hearing about this demo version of "Where We Belong," but I can't say I've ever heard it. Would anyone care to point or link me to it in some fashion?

[youtube]lYgELzPf6fA[/youtube]

Thanks. Though, having now heard it, I don't get the backlash against the album version. To my ears, they sound relatively the same. Close enough, at least, for it to baffle me that people could love one and react so negatively to the other. Maybe it's just a matter of people liking what they heard first more, as someone in here already suggested.

people just like what they're used too more. but if they took the time to listen they would see how empty the demo sounds compared to the album version.
its like people who think the american version of "the office" is better then the u.k version. Whatever they're used too they'll like more.

its like people who think the american version of "the office" is better then the u.k version

Those people are wrong.

But I stick to my guns about Where We Belong, I do prefer the demo to the album version, and certainly don't think it sounds 'hollow.' On the other hand, it's perfectly understandable for people to like the album version heaps better, so whatever really. To each his own.

I'd like to see an intrepid audio engineer mix together the Physicist and Epicloud version of Kingdom. I did a half assed job of doing it on YoutubeDoubler but the vocal placement is out of sync.

I know this sounds corny as hell, but I woke up this morning feeling all positive and energized with the Epicloud songs stuck in my head. Devin is truly a master of human emotions. He can lift you up with his poppy, upbeat material, take you to sheer, volcanic rage with SYL, or take you the darkest depths of your soul with more plaintive albums like Terria and Ocean Machine. I have never heard an artist cover such a wide emotional gamut and do it so well.

Alright my mind is reeling at processing at the extra bonus tracks. According to this site, there's 2 more bonus tracks from the iTunes edition. Has this actually been confirmed? I don't see anything about it on Wikipedia or anywhere else.

Is it me or does Lucky Animals just really not fit on the album? There seems to be this giant angelic vibe for most the album but Lucky Animals kind of...I dunno, it's like I'm making out with the most beautiful girl in slow motion and someone throws a giant glazed ham at us when that track comes after True North. lol...after its done Liberation is like the "hey girl, lets get into my car and go somewhere they can't throw a giant ham at us while we're making out in slow motion..." so we drive really effin fast and get to a mountain overlooking everything and go back to sexy time in slow motion to the rest of the album.

I'd like to see an intrepid audio engineer mix together the Physicist and Epicloud version of Kingdom. I did a half assed job of doing it on YoutubeDoubler but the vocal placement is out of sync.

I tried that and also Save Our Now and the song it's based on... But both combinations don't work because of the slightly different tempos. It probably could be done with some effort, but I'm too lazy for that right now : P