Hmm, well I don't think I'm on the same wavelength when it comes to judging which album is heavier or not if DT12 could be considered heavier than some of those
Perhaps I tend to skew my opinion on what is a heavy album based on having the heaviest individual songs (even if it is mixed with material that is not heavy at all). Very little on DT12 comes close to as heavy as Beyond This Life, Home, The Glass Prison, A Nightmare To Rember, The Shattered Fortress, imo.
That, as well as Enigma Machine being heavier than any one of those songs and TEI, FAS and BTV being more consistently heavy than BTL, ANtR and TSF.
SfaM has Regression, TMW, THE, OLT, TSCO and FF that aren't very heavy at all.
SDoiT has Dissapear, though BF, Misunderstood and the title track which are largely softer.
BCaSL has Wither and The Best of Times, 18 mins of lighter material as well as big chunks of ANtR, TSF and TCoT.
DT12, however only has three songs with softer sections and two ballady songs, one of which (AftR) is closer to an actual ballad but still has some heavy instrumentation. TBP is reasonably heavy from the first chorus until the bridge and IT has some of the heaviest stuff they've ever done with some of the lightest. The rest of DT12 is heavy prog rock or full-on prog metal.
its a pretty rocking album, and JR does mostly background and atmospheric lead stuff, playing more to his strengths. Plus, the songs are all really good.
I agree. Very good album that still holds up (though not much time has passed).