I don’t know, man. People in the D/T thread are going pretty gaga over the album, calling it the best since SFAM, comparing it to Awake, etc. The rest of the songs would need to be EXTREMELY jaw droppingly good to get to that level. Again, trying hard to be optimistic, though!
I kind of agree.
I agree too. Certainly a good album but for me no better than any other MM era album (forgetting The Asstonishing)
I also don't get the idea that it's some kind of balls to the wall metal album either. It's certainly heavy in parts but then so was DT12.
Having said the above the album is a continuation of the more melodic song-focused writing that got me back into the band around ADTOE after a very long period of disinterest in new DT material. So while I don't consider the album to be in the league of I&W (that applies to 99.99% of albums from anyone) I am happy to see them continuing in this vein.
I think it's probably their best in a long time, since SFAM, heck no, I mean SDOIT does exist and it's their best album. But it's good. It is sitting better than the other MM albums for me right now though, it just feels better, which sounds silly and abstract, but it's how I feel.
I definitely don't think it's a "balls to the wall metal album" either. If ToT is the "metal" DT record, I think this album is ToT heavy stuff dipped in FII structure and flow.