Originally Posted by AloneOnceAgain97

I, for one, do not care what you "professionals" are saying about it. I think the album is completely subpar with respect to the "Lateralus" album.

Yes, Maynard is more of an instrument than a LEAD vocalist in this album, and yes, that is refreshingly original. But no, it's not what people want to hear. In the past, Maynard has written very obtuse and challenging lyrics, but the lyrics for this album are mediocre to say the least (violence in the media... I mean, c'mon, man). I'm sure that may be part of the reason why he's not as "up front" as he has been in the past. On the other hand, he does do some interesting things, like "Rosetta Stoned".

Yes, the guitar plays a larger role in this album. No, that's not a good thing. I don't know if any of you noticed, but "Jambi" is more or less the same note over and over and over and over and over again. Adam is a MUCH better guitarist when he sustains himself.

The drumming has remained about where it was at "Lateralus", which I believe is a good thing, as everything else was a step back (in my opinnion anyway).

The bass tracks are virtually non-existant on this album. Have any of you tried rocking out to this album in a car with a decent system? (And no, I'm not talking about 2 15"s, I'm talking about a good system for rock music) It sounds like absolute shit; just really loud guitar riffs.

As for all the extras... Lame... There is waaaaaay too much going on during this album... We have a thunderstorm in "10,000 Days", an ER dialogue in "Lost Keys", and a bunch of random shit before "Intension" even starts to begin.

The track placement is horrible for this album, too. It goes from loud and angry to soft and sustained back to loud then to tribal then to FX then to sustained then to FX... There's no logical flow to it, if you ask me.

I don't care what you do for a living, this album is not as auditorally appealing as the past albums. I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying it's not as good as some of their past albums.