It's also about the lyrics, not only that. The choir shouting the lyrics after Russel sucks, for me is what totally ruins it. The vocal melody is another miss when it comes to the song structure, bad ass "dark iconoclast" melody, then it lessen a bit in the pre-chorus, then it goes almost pop metal in the chorus. It's like other album choruses, a more traditioonal and catchy sound sometimes it doesn't fit, and the risk is bigger in a 10 minute bad ass song. I think the chorus would sound better more heavy, with a different sinth approach, maybe a sinth lead and a more groovy, broken pattern drum. But the drums are fine, and the guitar riff is very good, with a very brief stop before the chord comes in, creating a nice tension.
Also, not liking a part by it's lyrics it doesn't mean you need to quit liking the band. Or I would never listen extreme metal bands, with cliche satan bullshitty lyrics "kill kill fuck your motha devil rules". But I think SX overall has good lyrics in most of their songs, Iconoclast (album) is overall an exception.
But it's just my opinion.
For serious? I prefer the instrumental parts in this song, I think they are one of the best in SX career. For me, it draws the direction they are going (or I expect they'll go from now on), bad ass throat cutting symphonic heavy metal. When everything stops and there's only Romeo riffing, every time I listen to it I can sware it's coming back to the verse, but when the choir enters, I can't help and put a jerk smile on my face. Listening to it on the bus, people look at me like I'm hearing porn or some dirty comedy. I get really happy.
