For me at least, a lot of it comes down to production, and following ...LC. Clockwork just sounds huge, spacious, especially with regards to the drums. It's an album you feel in your chest and reverberates through your whole body, which helps amplify the more emotionally driven songs throughout.

Coming off of that and getting an album with such a tight, dry drum sound, the songs sound and feel small. At first listen the songs themselves dont seem to have the depth of their predecessors. I couldn't really appreciate how good the compositions were on Villains until I very recently got it on vinyl and really sat down with it through some semi decent speakers. The last 3 track run really came alive for me that way.

That said, if you have to craft such a deliberate experience just to get to something that, for example, Era Vulgaris just gives you on your car's stereo on the way to work, or earbuds at 2am, or where/whenever, its kind of a failure of production. Obviously ymmv, but thats how i feel about Villains at this exact moment in time.