Track Listing:

1. Russia – 4:06
2. Kyrie – 4:05 Song Sample
3. Pater Noster – 4:01
4. Sanctum Christe – 4:02
5. Credo – 4:07
6. Japan – 4:18
7. Lux Lucies – 3:44
8. In Excelsiss Deo – 4:43
9. Close To Heaven – 4:22
10. Celestia Organa – 4:07
11. Sequentia – 4:14

Grading: (Niche Weighted)
Listenability: A
Relistenability: A-
Listening Experience: A
Variation: B-
Overall: A-

Magna Canta really came out of left field in terms of the style of music that I normally listen to. In general I have fairly eclectic tastes when it comes to music, and I can listen to pretty much anything that I like the sound of. Magna Canta, is this interesting blend of techno/dance, Gregorian chants, and very smooth melodic lines. It is certainly what I would classify as a “chill out” album; it seems to fit this category so well I think I’ll even classify that as a genre here. It is really quite difficult to find much information about the artists that are particularly involved with this group because they don’t seem to have a proper webpage. They are designated under the Intentcity Records label which also produces the artist Lesiëm which I will more than likely be doing a review of in the future.

For those of you that grew up in the Catholic faith, the Gregorian chants might sound a bit familiar, but this record is probably something that would happen if you were having a rave party in a church. (I apologize to any fervent Catholics out there that might take offense to this, I don’t intend such offense). What really drew to me to this particular style of music is that they did a crossover, they blended Gregorian chants (which I found quite nice) with a modern beat and great melodic lines which give a very calming overall experience. Like it says on the cover of the album, “Close your eyes and listen to Sanctuary” this is really something that one can do with this particular album. It is definitely an excellent candidate for one of those days when you just need to relax a bit (*shakes fist at economy*), damn office workers never refill the coffee machine when it’s empty, why do they make the doors for right handed people, and so on.

I have a difficult time really picking out any particular favourite songs in this album because they are all equally a pleasure to listen to, although “Celestia Organa” is one that really grabs me. “Russia” and “Japan” also strike me more than some of the other tracks on this particular album.

The vocals are really the most striking this on this album to me, and oddly enough despite the more “classical” feel of those vocals they seem to blend together so nicely with the dance beat sort of backdrop they are put against. I guess it’s one of those odd combinations that one would never think would work until they try it, and then it’s like, woah hey I think I’ve got something here. Magna Canta certainly has something here, and while not everyone might be into this sort of genre, if you are pretty expansive and open about your music tastes, definitely give this album a listen.

So look forward to some new bloggage, hopefully I can regain some motivation here.

Here’s a snippet of one of the next albums I’ll be reviewing, which is the album, “Sanctuary” by a band called Magna Canta. As it says on the album cover, “Gregorian Chants, electronica wizardry & mystical rhythms. Close your eyes… listen to Sanctuary.” Good advice I think.

Song Sample.

Track Listing:

1. “Indigo ~ prologue” – 2:05
2. “The Obsessive Devotion” – 7:13
3. “Menace of Vanity” – 4:13
4. “Chasing the Dragon” – 7:40
5. “Never Enough” – 4:47
6. “La‘petach Chatat Rovetz ~ the Final Embrace” – 1:46
7. “Death of a Dream ~ the Embrace that Smothers part VII” – 6:03
8. “Living a Lie ~ the Embrace that Smothers part VIII” – 4:56   Song Sample.
9. “Fools of Damnation ~ the Embrace that Smothers part IX” – 8:42
10. “Beyond Belief” – 5:25
11. “Safeguard to Paradise” – 3:46
12. “Sancta Terra” – 4:57
13. “The Divine Conspiracy” – 13:56
14. “Higher High” (Bonus Track) – 5:27
15. “Replica” (Fear Factory Cover) (Bonus Track) – 4:10

Grading: (Niche Weighted)
Listenability: A
Relistenability: A
Listening Experience: A
Variation: B+
Overall: A (HIGHLY Recommended*)

Let me start off by just saying, wow. Just wow. Epica is one of those bands that I don’t stumble across very often, they’re the type of band that just completely suck me in with each and every track they produce. Now, an important thing to note here, (hence the asterisk next to the Recommended above) the genre of symphonic metal is a little bit of a niche genre. Niche being that it may not reach every musical taste, but the level of development that Epica has within their tracks might just have the ability to bring people in.

I am seriously convinced that Simone Simons is one of the most incredible female vocalists, regardless of what genre you’re looking at. Being symphonic metal she has the sort of operatic vocals with an incredible tone and timbre that can only be attained I think from years of vocal training (according to her Wikipedia entry she started doing classical vocal training at the age of 15 and she is now 23). What really separates Simone Simons vocals in my ears is the amount of pitch control that she has, also she doesn’t go into the ear splitting glass shattering high end soprano notes which makes for an overall more pleaseant listening experience. What I mean by pitch control, is while she is singing you get the feeling that you could straighten picture frames with how completely center-line her pitch stays as she is singing any particular note (excluding vibrato of course).

One thing to note here is the vocals are not all done by Simone Simons on the track, along with sort of background vocal singers in certain places, there is the contrasting vocals of Mark Jansen who also provides some guitar work. A style thing associated with Epica is the fact that Mark Jansen’s vocals consist of growled vocals, anyone who is familiar with the metal genre will probably know exactly what I mean by growled vocals. A defining style theme Epica has throughout their tracks is the contrasting vocals (which primarily consist of Simone Simons incredibly beautiful soprano vocals), but include portions of contrasting growl vocals from Mark Jansen which have a bit more of a rough and unrefined nature to them. I think this is one of the few points about Epica that may turn some people off since some people find growl/grunt/scream vocals very disagreeable with their personal music taste. However, I think the two styles clash nicely, and if you are one of those music listeners that feel like you will get turned off by the harsh grunt vocals I just want to point out that the majority of the vocal work is dominated by Simone Simons, and not by Mark Jansen. Most of the Mark Jansen vocals come in limited quanities and come in as at the more counterpoint vocal portions of the various songs.

The instrumentation arrangements of the tracks are also quite outstanding on this album (and in all of Epica’s albums). Being “symphonic” metal there is of course the infusion of orchestral and band instruments, but there seems to have been a lot of attention paid to these tracks. I’ve heard a number of other “symphonic” metal bands that also had the infused orchestral/band instrumentation but they sometimes seemed lacking. Perhaps one thing that differs, is some bands opt more for computer generated instrumentation, but Epica at their formation also put together a choir (made up of two men and four women) and a string orchestra (three violins, two violas, two cellos and an upright bass). Not that I personally have a problem with computer generated instrumentation, but I think there’s a certain quality that can’t be generated by a computer, the human factor I think really makes a big difference.

As for tracks that really grabbed me on this particular album, The Obsessive Devotion, Chasing the Dragon, Never Enough, Death of a Dream ~ The Embrace That Smothers Part VII, Living a Lie ~ The Embrace That Smothers Part VIII, Beyond Belief, and The Divine Conspiracy all really jump out at me. This is DEFINITELY not to say that the other tracks aren’t absolutely incredible as well, but these in particular really grab me (and yes I realize that’s half of the tracks ).

I should also point out that this is the fourth studio album released by Epica (first album being The Phantom Agony, second being Cosign to Oblivion, and third being The Score: An Epic Journey (which consists a fair amount of instrumental tracks)), and they have one of those discographies (for me) that I can seriously listen to EVERY single track and love every minute of it. I hate to hype it up so much, but Epica is seriously something substantial.

So although this happens to be a little bit of a niche genre, I think even somebody outside of the niche could still be drawn in by this band and this album. Another interesting thing to point out is I don’t believe there are any foul lyrics within any of their albums (if that is of concern to you), I know when a lot of people see “metal” they immediately see that scary black sticker:

As far as I can tell (to be fair I haven’t studied the precise lyrics of each and every song, but I can assure you the tracks are absent of any blatant obscenity) Epica has pretty clean lyrics.

So if you have the opportunity I definitely recommend picking up this album (or at least a few tracks off iTunes or whatever other fancy things you kids are using these days with your musics.

Track Listing:

1. “Requiem for a Dying Song” – 3:30
2. “(No More) Paddy’s Lament” – 3:24
3. “Float” – 4:53
4. “You Won’t Make a Fool Out of Me” – 2:43
5. “The Lightning Storm” – 3:29   Song Sample.
6. “Punch Drunk Grinning Soul” – 4:20 (At the end features a 30-second performance by Tom Corrigan called “Rural Decay”)
7. “Us of Lesser Gods” – 3:19
8. “Between a Man and a Woman” – 3:21
9. “From The Back of a Broken Dream” – 3:21
10. “Man With No Country” – 3:04
11. “The Story So Far” – 4:11

Grading: (Note new grading system)
Listenability: B+
Relistenability: B+
Listening Experience: A-
Variation: B-
Overall: B+ (Recommended)

First, let me start this post by notating that I’ve adjusted my rating system to a more arbitrary and confusing one. (: I’ll be posting a guide to my new grading system, but keep in mind I’m trying to make it as obvious as possible. I’ve always found it difficult to rate an entire album with one number or even one grade letter. So I’m breaking it down into other categories (which aren’t meant to be obscure) in attempt to allow people a better understanding of the various strengths and weaknesses of an album.

So, here we are at Flogging Molly, after a waiting period of four years they have released their fourth studio album. I want to start out by saying that this new album is fairly standard Flogging Molly fair. That is, if you’re a fan of Flogging Molly, you will not be disappointed by this album, and if you’re not it’s as good an album to start liking Flogging Molly with (or not).

In case you aren’t familiar with “Celtic Rock” or “Celtic Rock” (As a friend of mine calls it “Paddy Rock”), it’s basically a mix of punk rock with a bit of Celtic (i.e. instruments) flavour to it. Just look at this band member breakdown (with instruments, note: I’ve included Wikipedia links to some of the lesser known instruments)

* Dave King – lead vocals, acoustic guitar, bodhrán, banjo, spoons
* Bridget Regan – fiddle, tin whistle, uillean pipes, vocals
* Dennis Casey – guitar, vocals
* Matt Hensley – accordion, concertina
* Nathen Maxwell – bass guitar, vocals
* Bob Schmidt – mandolin, banjo
* George Schwindt – drums, percussion

Flogging Molly succeeds once again to provide me with a very pleasant listening experience, each song flows very nicely, and while the only downfall I really found is the variation is lacking just a little bit (hence the B-). Flogging Molly tends to stay fairly close to the core style of playing that they’ve developed over the years (and this is not a bad thing since it’s a good style). The winners for me on this album are definitely Float (you might have heard it on the radio even), Punch Drunk Grinning Soul (my personal absolute favourite), and Lightning Storm. The arrangements for each of these songs provide for a very flowing movement from one song to the next, and they don’t fall into the trap of song duplication with variation (what the hell is that!? Basically each track being almost indistinguishable from the others). Each track is very distinct in it’s own nature while still holding to the very Celtic moving style that Flogging Molly has developed so well.

As I said earlier, even if you’ve never listened to Flogging Molly before, this isn’t a bad album to start out with. If you’ve never jigged before, Flogging Molly will make you jig (I won’t gurantee this, but it definitely gets my foot moving). Perhaps I’ll need to add a “Jiggification grade” to the albums (: All in all, awesome job Flogging Molly, I continue to look forward to any future endeavours they take on because they do awesome work.

Listenability

Yes, listenability is in fact a word:
Listenability (Noun): Being such that listening is pleasurable lis’ten·a·bil’i·ty n.

Yes, listenability is exactly what it sounds like, as many of the older generation might encounter when listen to the “new fangled banging on pots and pans music” that they’re offspring enjoy so much, listenability is a very subjective thing (keep that in mind). I try to review in terms of very general listenability, there tend to be certain elements of bands that are just horrendous to listen to (i.e. for me high pitched screaming, poor studio equalizer work (the high end needs to be brought in guys..)) It’s probably unlikely that the listenability grade will really vary much from each of my reviews (Disclaimer: I only tend to review albums I would actually recommend, I don’t review just anything unless requested). So how well.. easy is it to listen to it? That’s what listenability is.. basically.. I know it might seem a little obscure, but I hope you understand. (:

Relistenability

Now this is not particularly a word (at least it’s not in the dictionary) I just prefixified it (the meaning should be obvious). I’m truly a believer that some albums exponentially decrease in listening pleasure the more times you listen to it. Relistenability attempts to gauge the “play it again” factor with various albums, that is will you enjoy listening to it the 100th time you play it, or just the first few times? Relistenability is exactly what that is all about.

Listening Experience

Once again we delve into the more obscure and subjective arenas of my rating system. I do hope you’ll forgive me I’m a very obscure guy (: Listening experience has a lot to do with the overall “feel” of the album. Am I sitting there thinking about what I should make for dinner that night? Am I feeling like this album really makes me want to jam a pencil into my brain? Or does the music allow my mind to kind of clear and focus in on the sounds providing a more relaxing or exciting or insert emotion here feeling? If it does allow me to focus into the album, then the listening experience is good, if I’m able to almost completely ignore the music the listening experience might not be very high.. (or you have some awesome tuning out skills) Did I listening to the album? Did I feel like I was forcing myself to listen to the album? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself when attempting to place a listening experience rating on the album.

Variation

Once again, I hope this is fairly straight forward for you. Variation deals more with “Do the tracks all sound the same?” than anything else, when I’m providing a rating. Some bands suffer from cloneitis when they are writing tracks. Each track sounds almost the same as all the other tracks, how much did they mix it up? That’s what I attempt to gauge in variation. Now keep in mind most bands exhibit a certain “style” variation is not gauging this I would include a complete explanation at the beginning of the album review if the band had changed its core style. I speak more of interalbum variation. How much do the tracks sound alike? Could I tell one track from another one? That’s what variation attempts to gauge.

Overall

Okay, this really should be the least obscure one of them all. (: This is merely a culmination of all the rating things (expressed here and ones that I haven’t expressed) put together into one averaged grade. Keep in mind there are no mathematical calculations taking place with the overall grade. I do not precisely average the gradings of the other categories, this is just a one shot take everything into account, lay all the cards on the table, kind of grading thing. It takes into account not only the grading categories I have expounded on here, but more obscure grading critera that flow in my disorganized brain.

So, I hope this has been educational for you, I don’t mean to be obscure, but it’s hard for me to put things so simply when rating music. I just want to give you as verbose a rating as I can when grading something as a new music album. I love music, and I hope I can point you to some new stuff. Cheers.

Track Listing:

1. “White Owl” – 5:05
2. “Moonlight Sailor” – 5:11
3. “Steps Of Maya” – 5:47
4. “Precious Time (Solo Piano)” – 3:33
5. “Kappa” – 5:30
6. “Across The Sun” – 4:54
7. “The White Gate” – 7:07
8. “Doll” – 4:50
9. “The Next Plateau (Solo Piano)” – 4:43
10. “Safari” – 4:35
11. “Light Above The Trees” – 8:42
12. “The Wind And The Wolf” – 6:30
13. “To The Indian Sea” – 4:34
14. “Forever, Forever (Solo Piano)” – 3:19  Song Sample.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

I have a sort of obsessive compulsive thing about giving an album 10 out of 10. The thing I don’t like about giving number ratings to albums is it makes it feel like a rating of 10 out of 10 means perfection.. which it doesn’t. 10 out of 10 means that the album has far exceeded my expectations and highly scientific measurements (actually completely arbitrary). I’m considering revising my rating system to better reflect how I feel albums should really be rated. Anyway, on to the review.

I’m actually a bit of a newcomer to listening to Jazz music. Throughout most of my teen years I was a rocker/metal-head along with some alternative and truth be told I never really ventured into the jazz music arenas. Not to say I was averse to jazz music, it just simply never made it onto my playlists purely out of complete lack of information about any artists or albums available. I discovered Keiko Matsui (an absolutely wonderful jazz piano player) from listening to Sky.FM internet radios listening to their “Solo Piano” channel I believe. So after searching around a bit I came across this album. Now it is a LIVE album. I’ll be the first to say I generally stay –away– from live albums for simply one reason.. sound quality. Often times live albums (while the music itself might be good) the actual sound quality produced from the live CDs can be shaky and sound really hollow and disgusting. So I was pleasantly surprised when I gave this particular album a listen. It can even be difficult at times to recognize that this album is a live album (unless you have some killer sound gear) until of course the customary audience applause at the end of the song tracks. So if you’re one that’s like, “Ew live album I bet it sounds like shit” (I think that a lot) this one actually sounds really good.

This is a tough album for me to review.. because there’s very little that I can criticize about it (I like criticizing..) Every song on this album is absolutely beautiful and unique in it’s own way (I’m going to hold myself back from criticizing uniqueness in jazz music). One pitfall that a lot of jazz songs fall into (at least from what I’ve listened to..) is a number of them generally have that same “sound”. One can listen to different artists.. different albums.. different songs.. and you sort of get this feeling of deja vu sometimes.. did I already listen to this? I didn’t get this feeling at any time from listening to this album. Another beautiful thing about this album, is there’s a good variety of song formats.. What do I mean by that? Simply, every track isn’t just your standard jazzy drum, with maybe some jazzy guitar chords, and then a busting saxophone repeating the same melody over and over again. One of my favourite tracks on this album, Track #7, the White Gate, features this really incredible guitar solo type of thing at the beginning which has this sort of flamenco feel to it.

My absolute favourite track on this album would have to be the Track #9, “The Next Plateau (Solo Piano)”, it features this beautiful piano solo (this album contains three piano solo tracks all together, Track #4, #9, and #14 (as you can see from the track listing)) all of which are a wonderful experience to listen to. From start to finish one is almost forced to close their eyes as they listen to it as it builds in tension then slowly eases off again.. absolutely wonderful.

If you have ever been interested in stepping into the jazz world, I would definitely recommend this album as a starter album. Once again, as this album has passed the 9 rating on my scale that means the re-playability of the album is very good. Time and time again that you set this sucker playing, you’ll be glad you did each time. Every song on this album has a very steady flow of current (meaning from start to finish it carries you along with it). A number of artists have trouble getting caught on a log in the middle of the river.. meaning they’ll keep the listener moving along with them then they’ll get stuck.. perhaps replaying the melody line too many times, then one may get sick and change the track. The movement of the album has a very nice forward momentum that won’t eject you from your seat, but will keep your ears perked up the whole time.

Track Listing:

1. “Elite” – 4:24
2. “Rise” – 5:32
3. “Fury” – 5:06   Song Sample.
4. “Ronin” – 4:17
5. “Kaori Stomp” – 4:17
6. “Hate” – 4:12
7. “I Know The Reaper” – 4:35
8. “Seventeen” – 3:45
9. “The Cavern Of Lost Time” – 0:34
10. “Rogue World Asylum” – 4:13
11. “Through The Looking Glass” – 5:10
12. “Oki Kuma’s Adventure” – 5:12 (Japanese for to Big Bear’s [Adventure]^[1])
13. “Reanimator (March Of The Undead III)” – 5:00
14. “Prelude To Empire” – 1:37
15. “Empire” – 6:51

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

I was introduced to Machinae Supremacy by a friend of mine a number of years ago when I was still in high school. At first I just liked a couple of their songs; you know how it goes someone recommends a song to you and you’re like oh that’s cool, then you never listen to anything else. Anyway. That’s what my attitude was towards Machinae Supremacy for years, that is until recently I started listening to more of their songs.. and boy am I glad I did. Redeemer is the second studio album released by Machinae within their own self created genre of “SID Metal“. There actually are two versions of this album available the one from Spinefarm Records (which is what the Amazon link is), and the “Underground” edition which is what I’ll be reviewing here. What’s the difference between the two editions? The Spinefarm edition is remixed and has fewer tracks on it, while the “Underground” edition has more tracks. I personally have not listened to the Spinefarm edition, so I can’t comment on that particular version of it.

So, back to the review now that I’ve been rambling a bit. From first track to last.. Machinae held me in the whole time. Before I knew it I had already listened to the entire album.. Best tracks on the album.. well.. all of them are really good. If I have to narrow down my absolute favourite song, I’d probably go with “Through The Looking Glass” (Track 11). The guitar work.. the vocals.. heck even the lyrics are just such a pleasure to listen to. Some people have commented that the singer feels a bit on the “whiny” side, and I think I can understand where they are coming from when they say that.. However, despite this possible tripping stone, the songs are arranged so incredibly that such a thing will not tear you away from listening to the rest of the album. I think it might be a case of a singer that “grows” on you (this is the main reason that the album did not receive a 10 out of 10). Don’t get me wrong, the vocals are not bad. At all. In fact in many of the songs a bit of vocal harmonization goes on that is just beautiful.

The biggest thing that attracts me to Machinae is the guitar and arrangement work that they do. The guitar melodies.. the solos.. hell even the verse and chorus riffs are just awesome to listen to. I realize that this is going to be an “import” CD if you buy the “Underground” version from the Machinae website, but trust me it is WELL worth it.

The high rating.. Now.. it is probably going to be a somewhat rare thing to see me rating something so close to a 10 out of 10 rating. That’s because I’m a picky cynical son of a bitch. Probably the most important factor that affects my ratings is “RE-listenability” of the album. What does that mean? I can listen to this album from top to bottom MANY times. Which means I don’t get sick of listening to the songs after just a few songs (which many bands suffer from), I’m actually able to pop this sucker on anytime and listen to any song off of it and I love it. This is becoming a very rare feat amongst artists.. and so it’s always a treat to find an artist that is able to sustain the quality even through multiple listening events (and believe me I have listened to this album A LOT).

Machinae is one of those “diamond in the rough” bands that are just absolutely incredible to listen to, and yet they don’t get the recognition or appreciation they deserve because they are a little bit under the radar. I certainly hope that I’ll be able to review more bands that are just incredible and yet are still under many people’s radars. Keep up the good work Machinae Supremacy, you guys rock.

Track Listing:

2. “Crescendo Of Thoughts” – 5:24
3. “In The Deepest Of Waters” – 7:07
4. “Chameleon Carnival” – 4:59
5. “Star Shooter Supreme” – 5:18
6. “Extension Of The Wish” – 10:02

*Rating: 7 1/2 out of 10.

The first song that I heard off of this album was actually “The Words Unspoken” which was directed to me from Pandora. Needless to say I was quite impressed with the song itself and demanded to hear more of it, so I found out that the album in which that song originates is called “Extension Of The Wish”. So I listened to all the tracks from it and it was kind of a mixed bag for me (hence the 7 1/2 out of 10). The songs I really enjoyed off of this particular album are Track 1, The Words Unspoken, Track 2, Crescendo Of Thoughts, Track 5, Star Shooter Supreme, and Track 7 Arch Angel.

Now, just because I didn’t incredibly enjoy all of the tracks off of this album, that doesn’t mean all the other songs are terrible. In fact they really aren’t. However. I was unfortunately greeted with a little bit of the “songs starting to drag and mush into one another”. Essentially what this means is while some of the tracks stand out (such as the ones I listed previously) some of the tracks felt a little on the weak side to me. Despite these shortcomings, the overall experience of the album is a good one, however you may end up doing a little bit of track favouritism when it comes to this album. The other songs (not listed in my favourites above) are decent songs and they are certainly worth listening to, but the best of the breed off of this album, are the tracks I listed above.

Is this album worth buying, in a word yes. Despite the shortcomings of some of the tracks, this album does a decent job in displaying the heart of the progressive metal genre. While this band seems a bit unknown (I personally hadn’t come across them until Pandora popped them up on my radar) I am definitely looking forward to future albums from Andromeda.

The trouble progressive rock/metal albums can come across if they aren’t careful is too much meandering and lack of connection. One of the primary points of progressive rock and metal is it avoids the traditional “verse-chorus” song structures that a lot of pop songs follow. They generally meander into more complex arrangements and odd timing structures, and what they need to watch out for is that they don’t get “lost” on their way through the song. A lot of criticism arises against progressive type bands because their songs tend to be greater in length and folks used to the standard 3-5 minute song have trouble fathoming what could go on in even a 10 minute song (or in some other band’s cases 24 minute songs, ahem Symphony X). If done well these longer songs are incredible to listen to and the length of the song becomes irrelevant. I always base my movie recommendations on the same principle as my song recommendations, this principle is something like, “The quality of a movie (or song) is directly related to how many times you wonder to yourself how much longer until it’s over. Obviously if the movie (or song) is good you get that lovely experience of not even noticing the time passage since the movie (or song) drew you in so completely.” Andromeda in this album held their own very well, but as I’ve been suggesting some of the songs felt a little lethargic to me. Despite this lethargy Andromeda held onto me (even in the “weaker” songs) which led me to refuse to hit the “next track” button prematurely.

The bottom line. Check this album out, especially if you’re into progressive rock/metal, and even if you aren’t but enjoy nice instrumentation.

*Note: I had a very difficult time coming up with a solid rating for this album. I kept re-editing the post changing the rating between 7 1/2 and 8. So if you are looking for the most accurate rating I’m going to call it a strong 7 weakening towards 8 (hence the final 7 1/2 out of 10 rating).