To me, there are very few redeeming qualities about BC&SL, I really don't get how people like it.
The worst is when people put it above I&W.
I'm the opposite, I genuinely don't understand how some DT fans can dislike it so much. The last few minutes of ANTR drag on and AROP is not very exciting, but the rest of the album is really damn good.
I think I'll take a stab at explaining why I personally think BCSL is easily the worst album DT have ever made. Mostly because I've never put it into clear words before and I think I want to.
For me there are a lot of problems with this album in particular. Things I have problems with are, the songwriting, the lyrics, production, and structure.
The Songwriting:
My problem with the songwriting had a lot to do with DT doing heavy in a very modern style. Gone were the Metallica style riffs and heavy grooves, and in came double bass pedal 16ths and petrucci just holding out some power chords. Jordan and Myung were completely under utilized across the entirety of the album as well. This album was all about Petrucci doing pretty boring riffs and Portnoy doing his newer metal style drumming. A realize this criticism mostly applies to ANTR but, that was a huge chunk of the album. Also, AROP is just plain unimaginative as a song. Extremely generic metal sounds and in structure. To me the songwriting was just incredibly forgettable for this album. The only redeeming parts of the album were the beautiful agony section, and parts of The Count.
The Lyrics:
Easily the worst lyrics out of all their albums to me. Every song was so clear in what it was talking about. It was like reading a newspaper or something. I hate when lyrics are so straight forward. None of the songs had anything personal in them except for TBOT but they were extremely straight forward lyrics. (I know it was for a purpose and I'm not knocking Portnoy for writing them. I totally get what he was doing and respect it.) But I just hate when DT write these lyrics that are story telling time with no reflection or ambiguity to them. Also TCOT lyrics are probably some of the worst lyrics I have ever heard.
Production:
This whole album sounds like trash to me. Everything is just compressed to all holy hell and it makes it a pain to listen to. There is just nothing remarkable about the sounds on this album. Nothing new, nothing good. It's just all there, up front, in your face in a bad way. Portnoy's drums are all too loud, and there was no room for Myung or Jordan to be heard (much of this has to do with the actual compositions of the songs though)
Structure:
6 songs, the 2 longest ones were meh for me, everything else was pretty crap. So here is an album where I can only really listen to 3 of the songs and kind of enjoy them. This just automatically kills the album for me. There is zero flow for this album. Too much of it fell flat for me and I can honestly say I don't think I'll ever listen to the album all the way through ever again.
Anyways, that is more or less what I think of BCSL. Some of their albums share some same traits as this one, but to me BCSL is easily the most egregious.
Remember this is just one guy's opinion and my own attempt at explaining in a proper manner why I have a problem with the album.