madagas wrote:

hard to accept that people may like the album....

No, it's hard to accept that what fans are calling a cluttered mess has more interesting guitar parts than the only (if the record still stands) 2 albums by the same band to be number 1 and 2.  It's ok that this guy likes it...that's actually easy to accept.  It's even ok that he thinks it's more interesting on guitar than UYI is.  He's as entitled to his opinion as the rest of us are...he's no more qualified than most of us are (in fact I'd argue less qualified than most of us are) to make a comparison between the 2 since we are much more intimately familiar with both pieces than he is.

The fans that prefer the new band (not to mention the fans that prefer the old band) can't even agree on liking it.  That's a pretty telling tale...far more damning than anything I could say or some reviewer could write.  If the people that desperately want the album to succeed can't agree on what songs are good and what songs aren't (though almost every one of them will admit there are some good and some bad ones), how do you think the rest of the world is going to view the album?  If we aren't collectively blown away by anything on the album...