There's no song on SC remotely like Ropes
I think you're just trying to convince yourself it's better than it is. A lot of people did this after ASOP came out, too, myself included. Seriously, what level of musician would you have to be to play this stuff? How difficult is it to give every song the same basic structure and use very similar riffs throughout? What song would make you stop if you were in a record store or a (metal) club and say 'wow, that's really good' ? What on this album is powerful, unique or inspirational?
There are a couple of passable songs on the album. In Plain View is OK, Everything's Gone is just about acceptable. Realistically though every one of these songs would be considered some of the worst of they were on SOAPF. It's like they took the rejects of that session and recorded them for this album.
Sometimes being a fan isn't about desperately trying to like and enjoy everything the band produces. You have to, at some point, objectively analyse their work and in this instance I see no justification to suggest this is a good album, let alone a great one. People have different music tastes, I understand that, but I would like these 'great' melodies and leads to be pointed out to me, because I don't hear them. There's nothing here they haven't done before, except this time they're doing it worse.
Anders vocals meanwhile are really no better than SOAPF, his screams have hugely deteriorated based on the few he uses on this record and his attempts at clean singing are often in direct contrast with the instruments behind him. The verses of some of these songs are a mess, it's like the band think the chorus is all the need to concern themselves with. And the choruses on this album aren't even that good.
