Does the nine-plus minute runtime of First Wave Intact work as an opener, or would you have sequenced the album differently?

Works, and it's the album's high point — 6 seconds of near-silence into the drums, a riff repeated until it's exciting, then the 4:45 heavier turn, a brief vocal drop at 7 minutes, and a jam-band ending you could've listened to for 20 more minutes. The problem is nothing else on the record matches this level of mastery.

I would have sequenced it differently. It feels like it set the bar a bit too high for the music that follows.