I actually just put Slaughter of the Soul in for the first time in about a year. Couldn't be bothered with the new one to begin with and definitely not even going to give it a curious look after that appraisal. Slaughter of the Soul is awesome. I'm a guitarist first, 'metalhead' second these days and this album is a riff factory and like you said they can just churn out riffs. Besides the occasional gem released here and there you really can't go wrong sticking to the classics.
