SYSTEMATIC CHAOS

Hmm, i had mixed reactions when i first heard this album not bad but still not a masterpiece. This is the bands first release for RoadRunner records, and to be honest i cudda guessed that they were gonna try and make them more appealing to a more metal auidence, its quite a heavy album with more focus on the guitars than before and it also seems like they spent a good bit less time on the songwriting as well. Now dont get me wrong there are some great songs on this album (the opening and closing tracks and THE MINISTRY OF LOST SOULS easily being the 3 best songs on the album) the rest are good, but only in small portions, they can get quite annoying at times, in my honest opinion the weakest album the band have released, still far from terrible though as those 3 songs make up for a lot of it, the song REPENTANCE isnt to bad as well, a mellow track about Portnoys addictions with a cool end section where DT got all their friends from different bands to play a spoken word role in the track;

In The Presence of Enemies Pt. 1 - 10/10 Forsaken - 7/10 Constant Motion - 7/10 The Dark Eternal Night - 7/10 Repentance - 8/10 Prophets of War - 7/10 The Ministry of Lost Souls - 9/10 In The Presence of Enemies Pt. 2 - 10/10

My Conclusion? has our metal gods really ran out of ideas? not really there are still some great ideas on this release, the songwriting isnt that strong though, still worth the buy.