I'm just confused when people call this a masterpiece.
Outside this forum, it's not. Earlier in this thread we discussed RateYourMusic.com and sputnik.com, and both sites' numerous reviews rate TA as the lowest album of their catalog.
For me, it simply comes down to, JP and JR aimed way too high. Like, wayyyyy too high. So, even though they gave themselves more time than usual, the vast scope of the album (music, lyrics, story, artwork etc etc) stretched them so thin that each aspect came out poor.
For me, A New Beginning 3:25-3:50 is so mind-boggingly the worst music DT has ever penned, I just can't fathom that the same guys who wrote SFAM didn't stop halfway into writing that part and said "aaaaand, onto the cutting floor". That 25 seconds section encapsulates all that is wrong with the album, IMO. Sequencer-sounding drums, wtf lyrics, "Frozen"-style music.
EDIT: Honorable mention to the beginning of "Losing Faythe", which is total wtf too. First, the pun (Faith vs Faythe) that was overused by that point. Then, the freesound.org sample of the crickets. And then, yes, a guy pretending to be a woman crying.