I appreciate your sympathy for them... feigned or no... but this is a blight that will not quickly be washed from my brain. I am all for progression... but why progress into... just for real, its so bad.
I'm afraid your conclusion of suck-ness is entirely accurate. Sad thing is, I truly, deeply enjoy The Jester Race, Whoracle and Colony, so this latest smelly poop of music from them is sad indeed.
I suppose its not the music itself that I think is too bad... I mean it is unremarkable as hell, but it is produced really well... Anders though... he sounds like a 14 year old kid at a VFW show trying to sound like John Davis... and I'm sure some 14 year olds could do a much better job.
I'll reserve judgement until it's released, I'll give it a chance though, I was one of the ones that liked RTR, a fair bit actually (although admittedly it was not up to par, but still a solid album in my mind).