Album Rating: 3.5
I have to agree about the production on this. The guitars mix is weird. It's super rhythm guitar or solo heavy totally washing out the secondary melodic lead lines that are always present. Also, the breakdowns "splat" more than "thud" now when they execute them. It lacks power. Another interesting thing to note is that according to an interview with AltPress, JB mentioned that unline all the albums up to this where he wrote almost all of the songs, Dustin did a majority of the song writing because JB became a Dad. He also mentioned that instead of having 12 different parts to incorporate into the song, he'd axe off half of them and only do 6 to "streamline" the songs a little bit. This explains a lot to me. I feel like I can hear the change.
Overall, some of the stuff that I love ABR for, the guitar work and the punchy nature of the fast breakdowns feel a little more watered down.
At this point, I think I prefer Phantom Anthem. But who knows over time...
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