Senjutsu. I don't necessarily rate it all that much honestly, but I feel TBOS simply has too many moments that are utterly lackluster and songs that are at best okay.
Most of the songs on Senjutsu are massively bloated and there's two I kinda despise (LIALW especially, Darkest Hour mostly because of the godawful lyrics and bad melodies) but the musical ideas tend to be more interesting to my ears and there's a few decent tunes.
The lead single on Senjutsu is far superior, but IESF obviously edges Senjutsu out as an opening track due to the song's sluggish pace and excessive length. Meanwhile, EotC is interesting musically but feels out of place. HoE is the far superior closing epic. TBOS is a much better title track and similarly also is far stronger than TTM as the mandatory Janick co-write epic, but it's just not enough when you also have WTRRD and SotV dragging the album down. I don't necessarily hate those songs, but they're about the same as the DoD filler tracks in my book.
And don't get me started on TMOS. That track is not only straight-up bad, it also sounds like a fucking demo.
e: Oh yeah, one mark against Senjutsu is that unlike its predecessor, there's massive amounts of recycling and self-plagiarism on the album. Like, distracting amounts at times. Despite this somehow I find the album to sound fresher than TBOS.
