Well, back to Senjutsu, yesterday I heard it for a round trip in the evening and I enjoyed the living shit out of it. Very solid effort that doesn't implode under its weight (or length) at all.
I still think I like The Book of Souls a bit better - it had three absolute monster tracks (opener, title track and obviously Empire) and many other solid songs, while Senjutsu has more of that "heard this before" feel, and that guitar line doubling Bruce's vocals plastered all across the darn album, but all in all, it's a great album and the three epics at the end are all great. I must have spaced out being concentrated on driving 'cause Parchment's solo section didn't even feel that long, when it ended I was like "oh, back to vocals already'?".
And the second solo of The Writing on the Wall is memorable and the best on the album, who did that? Adrian?