Hey RobDel now I understood your answer!
So here is it how my Sound engineer teacher told it to me:
The most important thing when creating a full album with a cohesive sound is to record the songs in the same room with the same instruments played by the same players trough the same microphones into the same mixing desc into the same converters...
The mix has only very, very little part on how everything sounds. So if you want a coherent sound -> Make sure it sounds coherent at recoding/sound design stage.
Then you have a lot more options at the mix. For example you can pump harder songs by compressing the hell out of the room mics and you can have softer songs more intimate by making very dry and near drums.
My teacher told me, that he starts with "weak" "filler tracks" of the album to get a basic understanding of the recording and instruments used in the arrangement. For each track he will start with the settings of the last one and then adjusts them to the theme of the individual track. Then after 3-4 tracks he will have great settings on his mixing gear for most instruments so he then mixes the 1-2 feature tracks of the album to make them stand out. After that he uses the build settings of the mixing gear to very fast mix the lower priority tracks (at that point you typically get bored of the sound/album so its good to have finished the important ones). If the first 1-2 tracks then sound totally different he might go back to those to adjust them to the overall sound. So to say he refines the eq and compressor setting of each instrument as he progresses with the tracks, but he also does always adjust those to the theme of the individual song if he needs the effect -> e.g. rock vs ballad.
Send FX can be a good way of giving more of a coherent sound, but it is better to choose send FX that fit the tempo and overall feel of the individual track to create diversity. On rock songs you want dry guitars in your face, on a ballad you want reverb drowned guitar arpeggios maybe. Or on a ballad you want a huge reverb on the singer to fill out the space vs some delays in crowded rock songs that leave no place for reverb tails.
I would always mix the stuff in 1-2 great master chain fx like a pull tech eq or ssl compressor. This will glue the whole album together. But always adjust the time parameters and gain-reduction on your master compressor -> pumping rock vs transparent ballad. And add slight boost on 3kHz for e.g. on your master eq can make a hard song jump out and be a little bit more in your face compered to the "softer" songs.
Then send that stuff to a mastering guy and let him do his magic to give a final cohesive touch.
-> So in a daw environment try to save the channels trips of every track and instrument and test if they work for the other tracks.
Good Day!