There was one tour where they only played new songs and a few old ones with only clean singing. A lot of people were really disappointed. I also saw people leaving on several shows.

Was it that bad that people started leaving?

Good to hear the shows have improved. Maybe they got the hint from the crowd reactions. Eg. people leaving.

I just miss the heavy melodic epicness of a song like The Drapery Falls. There's so much emotion in that song, both in the music and the lyrics. They've been lacking on that front for a while now.

But it's a definite step up from their last four.

I'm not fully through the new one yet, but I'm not enjoying the choppiness of it as much. Not a big fan of being progressive for the sake of being progressive. Their older material felt like it had more of a soul to it.

They were just on tour with a fan-selection playlist. That only contained one song of their Deep Purple era and was full of classics, otherwise. Those shows were pretty amazing.