From the bands prior work with their first debut album Breathe in Life with a few singles and E.P., many fans thought this album was going to be heavier than their last one. Do not assume this album is light, but it is a step back from their first album in that stance. In majority of the songs, you hear a softer breakdown, more clear/clean lyrics, then it starts back up to what most fans of their prior work enjoyed. One fan of this band told me it didn't give them that "energy" like their older album did, which could be justifiable with the way this album plays.
I found the album to me more theatrical. By that I mean it had more symphonic sounds with the piano, and chimes that played through some of the songs, but that was nothing new with Betraying The Martyr's work. The first album itself had the same concept, with less of a overcoming appearance of these sounds. If you listened through the first album, you get glimpse of the theatrical sound in "Man Made Disaster" and "Tapestry of Me." Hell, the opening song to the album "Ad Astra," had no lyrics, no heavy beats, but a full on orchestra sound that opened up for the song "Martyrs." Phantom, on the other hand, skipped over the orchestra opening into one of the better songs on the album, "Jigsaw." This was one of the few things many of the fans I talked too liked. It had a heavy opening that then broke down into a clean chorus, which multiple of Betraying the Martyrs songs have in common. But it still sounds like it was meant for a theater or open surround system to get the best effect. This album still had another key up it's sleeve, and it took me a while to figure it out.
If you all have even heard someone say "Let it go, Let it go!," to mentioning the movie frozen, you have found the link. Betraying the Martyrs did a full cover over the song "Let it Go" from the movie Frozen. I never imagined a metal band to do such a thing, let alone make the best cover of that song, till I heard the cover. This is were the theatrical sound of the album comes out in a full blast of perfect mixes, guitar rifts, and screams. I have to say, it is one of the better songs on the album with how it came out to be. I found parts of it comical, especially when unclean vocalist Aaron Matts stopped screaming and clean vocalists Victor Guillet came in to fill in the chorus that followed. The jump from heavy, screaming, energetic to the calm, soothing pace of the song abruptly, just made me laugh lightly and continue singing along. I found this to be one of the highlights of the album.
Other songs like "Lighthouse" and "Legends Never Die" had more of the bands old roots of sound and less of the theatrical sound the album has as a whole. These two songs have better rifts than the other ones in my opinion, and flowed perfectly with each second.
The album in a whole was a fairly good album, including the album's title song, "Phantom," which had special guest Gus Farias from the band Volumes. While many fans had a mixed feeling towards the album, I found it to be great. It had many ups over the downs, and while watching a music video is different than seeing them live, I feel like there was more energy and time put into this album, lyrically, and into the overall sound.
If you have not had time to listen to this album, check it out on YouTube. I will post the links below for you to listen to them as well.
Overall, I would give this album a 7.5/10 and recommend it to anyone wanting to sit their and have a theatrical experience listening to this album.
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