As a former shoegazer I quite enjoyed this, but a few more vocals wouldn't go amiss ;-)

I think a big part of the hardness and flatness that folk are hearing is overmastering. I've not thrown a meter on it myself yet but http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/119569 suggests pretty limited dynamic range, there's a tendency for the drums to suck up and spit the brassware over the top when it all gets going.

I like the mixing, there's a lot of nice eq work, instruments are well defined spectrally but I'm not sure I get what the 'presentation' is meant to be, there's a lot of space but it's not clear 'where' we're meant to be (room, cathedral, stage, spaceship...)

I can imagine it being quite a good thing to have on cans in the office.

7/10