They actaully use hardly any disotortion on this album
They have a very saturdated sound, but its not distorted and fuzzy. Alot of the chug in the album comes from Alexis pick attacks, not the level of gain he puts on his amp. And the songs arrangement are on the whole a lot more interesting. They're not jsut collections of mindless melodies, they are full songs. With dynamics, theres minute details that get mixxed in as a "whole" and you can only notice these nuances if you take it apart. Instead of being just straight riffs, and melody plus chords, they throw it up. They change the way the riff is played when they go back to it, theres many hidden polyrythms in the songs. Nothing major that you would pick out at first glance, but if you go back and listen again you will hear these often-times subtle differences. Its a very tasteful album, especially when it ocmes to lead guitar. Sometimes its good to sit back, and let there be less going on, so when it does go on, people won't already be burned out by melody after melody after melody, that they don't even care to notice a solo is happening (IE Dragonforce, who are my favorite band anyway, simlpy because Herman Li is retardedly amazing). I think this album has a great balance to it, letting the interplay between EVERYONE in the band happen instead of it jsut being a showcase for Alexi to shred over a couple rehased riffs and old prgoressions torn out of 80's hair metal and infused with keyboards
Theres mroe going on between everyone and their respective parts instead of just Alexi.