the intro is OK, but it should never be a part of the actual track, it should always have been a separate track. now it's ridiculous to play the song and wait for 1 minute until it actually starts.

as stupid and simplified, as if I said that Buckethead is a mindless shredder nothing more (which is obviously at the same ignorance level).
learn the solo discography and get back then.

I'm with monkey here again. what BBF did maybe didn't quite fit into that original Finck/BH concept, but it DID massively anchor all the songs. and actually, my most favourite parts of ChiDem ARE the places where BBF is shining. title track fretless fills, Shackler solo (maybe THE most memorable part of the album), Catcher solo, Riad solo... yeah, it seems a bit forced somewhere, but I guess that's because they already had the album done for a couple of years and then they just glued BBF onto it.

well, I must say the best sounding version of ChiDem (the song) is the leak from 2007. yeah, it suffers heavily from loudness war, but still it's the most in-your-face-punch of them all. it almost seems like they had tight mastering back in the day, and every year they just made it muddier and looser. strange.

yup, the Boston promo seemed to have absolutely great mixing.