Well that just won't work

My biggest issue is the bare bones writing. All there really is to the majority of the album is extremely straight forward riff's that anyone could have written. I don't dislike it, but there's not a whole lot that's standout to me either. It just feels like it's missing practically everything that makes the band so great imo. I can see I'm getting damn redundant on the matter so whatever ... Just my opinion.

That's exactly how I feel. I think TGCD was a lowpoint for Katatonia.