That's the genius of the album though. The production of the guitars, which you think would be way up front like all their other albums, is of equal importance to all of the symphonic elements so that no single instrument gets center stage. They attempted to make a metal album with production in the spirit of classical/opera. Or at least that's what I get from it. In any case it's a singular power metal album in a genre full of guitar albums with pretensions of being otherwise.

Well, when you put it like that. At least that makes me want to see what I would think of it. Lots of metal bands have attempted grandiose albums with symphonic pretentions, but it usually end in disaster.

Oh, so that's why you think old metal mixing is superior.

...

I think old metal mixing is superior to anything mixed by Charlie Bauerfeind.

ALLRIGHT will you calm down with that already?!

I'll do it when I'm done listening to this gay ass Tori Amos album on my stereo.

Jesus Christ is that how you define modern metal? Yuck.

1. No.

2. OMG Tori Amos has some good ****. I need to dive more into all those albums I stole from the internet. Boys for Pele calls to me.

Rodan begins with almost 7 minutes of guitar noodling:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SRjxl3bN2i8

Only to next put in an energetic short aggrressive track, the only of the 6 tracks like it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3MuTLDGC0JU

It would've worked a lot better the other way around.

I haven't even listened to that one nearly enough myself. She's got so many albums, and they're so long... So I'm way more familiar with some of the newer ones, even though I have them all.

Just finished listening to To Venus and Back and American Doll Posse this evening and they're both pretty damn good.

Not really, but you're the one who brought it up in a Blind Guardian context. It's not exactly from the 80's.
Modern metal prodcution - generally - would make me think of the awful sterile sounds of bands like Periphery, Textures, Bring Me The Horizon.