Reviewed by Peter John Willoughby

Christendom's most popular hard rockers have come bouncing back with a killer album. It's still brutal and intense, but some of the rawness has been replaced with tightness. Also there are more clear vocals mixed in with the screamo. In "Emergency Broadcast/The End Is Near" there is not only an interesting riff but a clever arrangement which starts in brutal abandon and ends in wistful gentleness. "The Only Survivor Was Miraculously Unharmed" is an intense song that is closest to the old Underoath style. The lyrics in "The Created Void" reflect the hard times that the band has been through - "Let's do this for each other/Let's do this for truth/I give for you, you give for me." The surprise comes in the form of a ballad in "Too Bright To See, Too Loud To Hear" with "Good God, if your song leaves our lips/If your work leaves our hands/Then we will be wanderers and vagabonds/They will stare and say how empty we are." The Special Edition comes with a 38 minute DVD which takes us through the process of recording, producing and mixing the album. It's a little irritating at the start when band members all answer a question in the same way - the joke soon wears thin - but after that the footage helps you to understand the Herculean efforts that went into recoding this album.

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