I dislike writing about CDs like this because there's a lot going on over the span of the album, but it's neither terrible nor excellent, either of which would more easily inspire writing. It just ends up being kind of decent.
Great Sorrow's previous albums were quite traditional death/doom, and initially I didn't think much had changed from the first two tracks. Nothing terribly unusual about the opening track other than the vocals not starting until 4 min. in (which made me think it was going to be instrumental). The second song is in the same vein, but adds more extreme distorted vocals, synths, and acoustic guitar into the mix, giving it more of an atmospheric flair. "Freak Factory" is an odd attempt at groove metal that incorporates some of the atmospheric elements.
While I would have roughly categorized the first half of the CD as some sort of doomy atmospheric metal, the second half feels far more like some sort of progressive metal. There are still tinges of the material from the first two tracks, but on the latter half of the album the keyboards and acoustic guitar are in service of more pronounced progressive influences, as well as more classic metal influences and even some brief thrashiness. There's a harmless ballad as well as the weird "Dancer Mary Jane," which starts with a folkish beat, segues into some shredding, and ends with the chorus of "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" (I don't hear the melody of the actual song though, just the lyrics) and a flushing toilet. Other than that, there's nothing too weird here and it doesn't really try to draw from influences outside of metal or be overly avant-garde. On that note, I should add that I've only heard one of the band's later albums, "New Day Comes," which is much more rock than metal. While "I Hope" certainly has a broader range of influences than their pure death/doom material, it's nowhere near as lightweight as the material that came out years later, so I'm not quite sure when the transition was.
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