I had barely digested The Healing Process from 2005 when a new release from these Canadian extremists promptly arrived.
In light of this, it is perfectly logical and justified to compare The Ills Of Modern Man with its predecessor.
The album is certainly strong, but its strengths lie in different elements. The music is changing, the band is evolving — the question is in which direction they are doing so, and whether anyone likes it or not.
Across all three albums, there is a clear shift in sound toward something more commercial and trendy. That said, it hasn't really affected the heaviness of the material. It remains as brutal as ever, and in some moments even overwhelmingly heavy and dense. It must be noted that the music has become faster, the song structures have shifted somewhat, the grindcore component has disappeared, and deathcore has become the dominant style with ongoing infusions of adjacent genres.
Although to a lesser degree, the moments of brutal groove supported by guttural "pig squeal" vocals — which sounded so fresh and novel on the first album — remain.
Everyone will of course make their own decision about whether to listen to this record or not, but I have already drawn my conclusion: if I had never heard The Ills Of Modern Man, nothing would have changed for me.