Well, when I first got this album, I didn't like it very much. Now that I've had some time to listen to it, it's REALLY starting to grow on me. If you listen to the album on a good stereo, you can really hear a lot of the cool things that Trey is doing. What I really like is how he's usually playing two different guitar riffs at the same time, and he's also doing some cool pattern riffing, rather than just playing really fast. Pete's doing what he does best, so there's no complaint there. I was really amazed with Steve's performance, however, especially the range he's showing on here. Double tracking the vocals was definately a good idea! His attack on "Stricken Arise" is a welcome change as well.
Now, I have two problems with "Heretic." One is the guitar tone, which is quite thin compared to the other albums, and it just doesn't seem as dark. The other is, of course, the overall layout of the album. There are too many instrumentals! They could have left "Born Again," and "Drum Check" to the bonus disc, and put the rest of the instrumentals between songs, so you don't go way off path while listening to the album. The other instrumentals are good, and MA really did a great job on Blessed, where they had 4 instrumental tracks among 13.
Has anyone ever heard Pestilence's "Testimony of the Ancients?" That album was half instrumentals, but they did it really well, using the instrumentals as little breaks between the songs. If MA plans to do this next time, they should follow Pestilence's idea.
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When you get 44 tracks, that's really boring to have so many of them in the file. 
