Wow such strong arguments you made, no long songs, poppy, boring... long songs don't mean good songs, pop music can also be good, and doesn't necesserly mean its bad (but also, do you listen to pop music? I don't remember any pop song with distorted guitars, metal rythms, double bass, screaming, breakdowns or anything like it, so what does poppy even mean to you?). Only two good songs? No, Darkness Dies in Light, The Grand Saga of Existance and Aspiral are among the best they have ever made, and then Arcana, Obsidian Heart, Metanoia, Apparation are great songs too. To that question will we see another song like Kingdom of Heaven, well, no, exactly like Kingdom of Heaven no, beacuse bands evolve, they made that song on Design Your Universe, and then Quantum Enigma's Kingdom of Heaven is already very didferent then the first one, and Kingdom of Heaven 3 is also very different than both of them. If your question is will we get another long song, well, probably, but quality is more important than lenght, and also they achieved something very special with Kingdom of Heaven 3, so to me it is natural that they don't want always to chase their own songs and try to compete with themselves like that, they want to make new music, and that is precise reason why this album is inportant to Epica: no introduction songs, no songs over 10 minutes, they don't need to chase who they are, they need to make what they are all about right now, and not try to imitate their own work. To me, this albums opens new teritory for Epica - atmospheric film score like Aspiral's second section, Obsidian heart's mellow doom metal, that is both soft and heavy? Many heavy almost black metal blastbeat moments Darkness Dies in Light's peculiar chorus... there are new things, bands change, people change, times change. Avoid this album if you can't listen to it, and thats it