Yes, so far I feel like there is something missing on this album.
Unfortunately that's probably a pretty apt comparison. IMO, TOT sounds
like 69 minutes of "The Glass Prison", with a few softer parts like
"Vacant". But I will say one thing: the songs flow much better and are
much more polished than on SDOIT. You can really tell that they wrote and
refined everything before going into the studio.
Basically, the impression I have so far is that if you were to choose any
two of the six tracks on TOT (I'm not counting "Vacant" since it's so
short), they would be GREAT to have as PART of a DT album. These songs
could possibly be the highlights on an album - the Voices/Scarred,
Metropolis/LTL, Lines in the Sand/Trial of Tears, etc. But to have six of
those back to back, all sounding similar, just doesn't work for me. The
best thing about DT's best work for me has always been the variety, and
there just isn't much of that on TOT.
I expect that I'll hardly ever listen to this album in one sitting. They
just really overdid it with the "heavy" theme, which is what I was afraid
of. It does have one thing going for it though, which is that aside from
"As I Am", I haven't been able to pick a favourite or least favourite yet.
The songs are all pretty good -- as far as metal songs go anyway.