Stephen 'Cartesian Dreams' was hailed by many as one of the strongest releases by the band but in fact, after some extensive spins, I think this is the worst of the last four records and the second worst of their entire career after the abysmal 'The Power and The Myth'. But despite that negative view, House of Lords' grand arrangement, majestic vocal, heavy guitar sounds, and clever lyrics are actually making them a greatly underrated band.

I'll start with the best tracks here. 'Desert Rain' is a blast, the riffs are heavy, the typical melodies of classic HoL still exist, Christian's vocal is just superb. 'Bangin' is even better, the verse and chorus set are better and this is clearly the best track. Another great thing to watch here are 'A Simple Plan', 'The Bigger They Come', and 'Joanna'.

The rest are between average and fillers such as the title track and the bonus track, 'The Train', are good but they've done so much other better songs. 'Sweet September', a tender ballad, still a good one, but still far from perfect and quite disappointing for me because House of Lords' used to make such special ballads. 'Never Never Look Back' and 'Repo Man' are the worst and 'Born To Be Your Baby' and 'Saved By Rock' are too average and forgettable as well.

With 12 tracks and 2 fillers and 2 other average tracks, this album is actually still considered pretty good. The problem is probably after two great albums since 2006, House of Lords was burdened with a great expectation to create an even better album and that's not an easy task to achieve. My rating will stayed around 75% for this one and in other words, a good thing to have one in your collection.