Day & Age is the perfect example of quality vs. quantity. The album art itself, is quite gorgeous. They went with a mosaic design, so when you step back and look at the art from a distance, you can see the full picture. The purple and yellow hues perfectly detail a full moon night in the desert. Seeing as they are from the desert, they did a great job re-creating their homes landscape. At the same time, the design is also glamorous. The mosaic stones are outlined with silver, so when you look at the art from side to side, it also sparkles in certain light. Where the packaging fails is inside the lyric booklet – where there are no lyrics. While Flowers is not a profound lyricist, it really is unacceptable to not have the lyrics – no matter how ridiculous “are we human or are we dancer?” reads. The content inside is simply just pictures of the band members in the same mosaic form, in all of its glamor glory. But this is also where the packaging fails. On the opposite page of each picture, it’s just left as a blank silver page. Why didn’t they include the lyrics on this side? So basically, you have half the lyric book blank – while the other half is the bands portrait. I am still going to recommend this for purchase. However, let me recommend the vinyl version. The art really shines in this larger format, as it really jumps out at you. If you don’t collect vinyls, the CD is still worth it, but be warned: there is no lyrics and the content is slim – but the actual art itself is stunning.
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-Brent K.