Black Dahlia Murder's "Nocturnal" puts me to sleep.

The awaited release from melodic death metal's "The Black Dahlia Murder" was a lot less than I expected. The initial idea of the album is great, but upon listening, I found myself becoming annoyed with the somewhat repetive sound of guitars and drums.
Hollywood's own seem to have succomb to the filtered sound of today's modern metalcore. The vocals are repetitive and seem forced rather than flow creatively. This may be due to the fact that this is the first album they have put out with their new bass player (Bart Williams) and drummer (Shannon Lucas). I'm saying that they ruined the album themselves, but they surely did not help the effort. The vocals are one thing in particular that took away from "Nocturnal". Previous TBDM (The Black Dahlia Murder) vocals combine an interesting mix between a low gutteral sound and a higher scream. The current lyrics, although as uninteligible as before, sound more like wicked witch of the west than a death metal singer. I was greatly disappointed. Another blunder I found while listening was that the guitar has a lot more bass sound than older recordings. Now, to some more bass is a good thing, because it can make the sound more "heavy", but in respects to TBDM, there was much more than it required. They're often melodic breakdowns do not require a low sound because they are playing higher up on the guitar, it just reduces the once harmonious sound to muffled noise.
To sum it up, it was a great effort and probably took a lot of time ad what not, but it simply does not compare to older TBDM. Sometimes change can make all the difference...