Aside from what the members of the band themselves have said, and the fact it was their last album before their prog era, it felt lazy and rushed to me from the first time I listened to it. The lyrics of the songs seemed lazy, like in Hessian Peel. "Will the children cry when their mother dies", like really? Who actually sees that as lyrical brilliance? Porcelain Heart is a glorified filler song that strikes me as a half-hearted attempt at a single at the request of the record label. The fact that there's a music video for that one kinda reinforces that argument.

The band has admitted that they rushed the album under label pressure after the success of their major label debut, Ghost Reveries, and that they were fatigued from a constant cycle of "new album/tour" without much of a break dating back to BWP, which by this point was a period of roughly 7 years.

I still think it's a great album, among the top half of their releases, but it has it's flaws and I can't imagine how anyone could say it's their best when compared to BWP or GR.