Been meaning to write a review on it.
First of all... I had a hard time with WHBWH in the beginning thinking many songs were repetitive and boring (except Angels Walk Among Us that was an instant hit). Had similar feelings with Weather Systems at first (it also had an instant hit The Beginning and The End, might be the best track they have done in years imo) but it felt better and grew on me fast, both those albums grew with time and I really love Weather Systems. But Distant Satellites?... It has nothing that really grabs me, well the last part of the titletrack is really powerful, but so far it has not been enough.
I cant even sit through one listening of this album, it bores me to death most of the time.
Some elements are better than ever, Vincent is doing an excellent job on vocals, drums are great with Cardoso taking over, love what he is doing on the title track, but too much electronics and discodrums on the last part of the album where some parts sounds like Cold Play ripoffs.
I cant really say that it is uninspired, they have new stuff going on but its just the way they write nowdays, its too simple and repetitive, some songs barely have riffs.
The track Anathema has some good old guitar melodies but it doesn't really get there and the solo has too much "jamming" in it and again... it gets a bit repetetive.
Buildups have always been a great part in their music making some powerful moments but now its just too much, every song has a simple little loop that keeps building with different instruments and stuff, but this philosophy of not forcing the music and all this talk about letting the music write itself etc is obviously slowly killing them for me, it has taken away a lot of what made them great, just write songs again damnit.