One thing I hope for on the new album are longer intros and outros.
I love how OLP will extend intros and outros in live concerts, but I feel that some of them should be recorded right into the song. Songs like Naveed, for example, benefit so much from the extension brought by them. I think that a song should exist before and after the singing.
I know I referenced Matthew Good recently in another thread, but I think it's something he does well that really adds to the music. Many of his epic songs start or close (or sometimes both) with a minute or more of just music. Here is an example of a fantastic intro from his new CD for a song called Garden of Knives: (all these clips are just the beginning or end of a song, so they are shorter)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUcGCNpxcWU
And here are two awesome outros, one from Advertising on Police Cars (from MGB, Audio of Being CD), and the other from his current CD Arrows of Desire, with the song Letters in Wartime:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YY-pfJoI98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QI6-zHy16s
OLP got some of it right with Curve, with Rabbits. But I want to see at least 3 or 4 tracks per album with more than just 1 melody of music before or after the singing. Make that 3:30 song into 4:15 with a kick-ass exit solo like this, in Double Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZYfdEJ6 ... e=youtu.be
Basically make good songs even better. Yes, we like to hear Raine singing. But we also like the atmosphere of the song, not just the actual lyrics. Let the song build up, and then let it fade out or explode at the end. I really think this is something OLP should bring back.