In the case of The Mountain, it is.
We're not talking about level shifts here. Aquarius and Visions are less loud on average (-7,6 and -6,3 dB ReplayGain respectively) AND still peak at the CD maximum. The Mountain has an average of -9,4dB.
I surprised at the reaction to my previous post. The excessive compression on The Mountain annoyed me since my first listen. It's especially annoying since I consider Visions to be one of the best sounding Metal albums of this decade, why did they need to take a turn for the worse in sound quality as their songwriting matured?