Coexistence Realm

This is one of the best audio dramas I’ve listened to. Everybody’s voices and accents were pleasant; there are so many podcasts with irritating vocal fry, sharp hissing s’s, baby voices, shrieky shrill voices, and sudden shouting that hurts my ears, but this one has none of that! And the volume was consistent - I didn’t have to keep turning the volume up and down in my headphones. Somehow they made it sound louder without actually being louder when a lot of action was going on. Literally every podcast, movie, and TV show needs to learn to do whatever they did; I hate not hearing the dialogue but then getting my ear drums blown out by the action. The story was compelling, the characters were interesting. Even the actors were really good! I think audio dramas are such a new form of entertainment that you can’t really be picky about good actors if the story is compelling enough, the voices aren’t too grating, and the soundscape is fine. But this one had it all! I was blown away. 10/10 would recommend.

Tons of elaborate sound design gives this SciFi horror a poetic feel. We swim through the action from vignette to vignette, not quite sure for several episodes if any character we encounter will reappear or not, is our protagonist or not. Plus, social media posts, emergency services calls, video preachers, research logs, and stretches where just the sound design carry the narrative. Some of the voices are so processed they are a bit hard to understanding, and some of the layers of sound are piercing enough I would not want to hear them very loud. But otherwise it’s a thoroughly engaging if dark audio experience.

I’m on episode 11. Though I am enjoying it, it feels like the episodes are actually very short and the action starts so quickly in episode one that I have had a hard time understanding what’s going on from the very beginning. Looks like it stops at 15 and maybe won’t ever come back?