i guess i'm a pretty cynical guy. most of the music in the world is, in my opinion, not very interesting. the locust, however, has usually been a satisfying counterexample. when the locust started doing their thing, 30-second noise jams with keyboards were new and different and everyone was happy. well, i'm not happy anymore. what i realized after listening to the new record several times is that the reason i found the locust "interesting" before was that i did not own any of their albums. this is a slight departure from the typical locust sound, but that sound is still all over this album and i am tired of it.
as far as i can tell, the locust goes to a recording studio, comes up with some amusing and "subversive" lyrics (as much as it makes me laugh, christian-bashing isn't really making a statement anymore) and then writes a few riffs and makes a song. a couple of fast grind riffs, a sludgier metal part, a short keyboard solo, some screaming, and (in the supposedly "groundbreaking" change since the last locust record) electronic sound effects are present in almost every song, and the parts just seem to get changed in an attempt at variety. there are high points - the drummer does an excellent job of transitioning into and out of the various parts and the lyrics are still superb - but the "arty"/"experimental" tendencies that we always hear about when this band is being discussed seem a lot less obvious after 23 songs of the same formula. after listening to this several times, there were only a few riffs that seemed worth paying much attention to, let alone exciting. the only people that will really dig this have already bought it, so don't believe the hype!