Don't know what everybody's problem is on this one. It barely scores 3 mark on Rate your Music site and lots of disdain from people I talked to. I mean what everybody expected? To match From The Devil's Tomb which to me was an album of 2010?

Its like asking Cryptopsy to match None So Vile. Ain't gonna happen. But that does not mean the rest of the catalog sucks. Its not like we talking about latest Morbid Angel here. Sure its not as ferocious as From The Devil's Tomb but some new influences did not hurt and a song writing is impeccable as ever. I just bought it today and already on a fourth spin, its that good. I know, I know, everybody have different tastes but seriously?

Or am I alone on this?

Well, "Devil's Tomb" only has a 3.57, so that's not a huge gap between the two. I think it's a good album, but this band has been courting backlash for a while - they signed to Relapse after being underground darlings up through their 2nd full length; and they went from playing fairly raw music (on their EPs and demos especially) to a smoother and more melodic approach (all their albums). I don't know. I don't want to always read people's motives and not their actual words/opinions, but it seems likely to me that the album is actually about consistent with their recent work and any drop-off in reception is largely due to the fact that the band is still too obscure to get mainstream accolades, but smacks too much of "selling out" for the underground that used to adulate them.

Interestingly as a counter to that argument though - if you look over all of their RYM page, NONE of their releases even gets close to a 4. Even my personal favorite (the Para Bhakti EP) has a fairly meager 3.53. So maybe a lot of people have just never been overly fond of them.

It's a bad album, hence the bad rap.

And going by magazine/site reviews you can't look for a standard, especially if it's out of 5. Things are typically reviewed subjectively, not objectively. So you could have both None So Vile and Pierced from Within being 5/5s, but thinking pierced from Within is way better. the number says the same.

It's a solid album, but they abandoned some of the things they were very good at. For one, the songwriting on From the Devil's Tomb was far more ambitious; on Embers they tried a simpler approach and I don't think it worked as well.

The other major issue I had was that the production was cleaned up too much. I'm not asking for LLN raw production, but From the Devil's Tomb struck a very good balance between sounding clear enough for all of the instruments to come through, while still being raw enough to add that dark atmosphere. From the Devil's Tomb sounded monolithic and majestic to me, while Embers and Revelations sounds too... safe. It also hurts because the Weapon's riffs are designed to take advantage of that atmosphere.

I will, however, say that as a bassist, I appreciate the extra bass presence on Embers.

For me From the Devils Tomb took a lot of spins to be able to get into after comparing it to its predecessor and it's only beginning to grow on me. I'm going to pick this one up tommorow and give it a few spins myself, although its clear that some of the bad rep on this album came before anyone had even had an oppurtunity to hear it. It seemed what left a sour taste in people's mouth initially was the fact that an Underground band signed to a larger label which sours some people. I don't think a lot of people understand how ambitious the band is and how the signing is more of means to plague a larger Audience with their music. Does a band have to make sure they only play to a small number of people and limit their opportunities to be a Deemed a killer satanic band? No, it's been proven that's not the case, I go to shows all the time and whether there are 50 people or 1000 there I don't care because I'm there for my enjoyment only and if it kicks ass it kicks ass, fuck everyone else around me. I've partied with a couple members of this band recently and I know they are sincere, this isn't a angsty "i refuse to eat my vegetables and I want everyone to know" costume party for them, but the album I plan to pick up tommorow and judge for myself leaving the all the hatred this album received before a note was recorded at the door.

RateYourMusic doesn't really rate metal, in general, that highly.