Great and well written fan review! Thanks for sharing it here Soulmonster.
Kaneda succinctly describes something I felt also:
"What i mean by that is before, it always felt like each member was trying to bring his sound out, to differentiate it from the original band, not just in style and technique, but also in the sound itself. As a result, you had all these different sounds and styles crashing into each other in the middle of a song."
...and just listening to the boots during the course of the Europe and South America tours I could hear it coalescing into what it should be. Can't wait to see them live this Saturday night!