This album was not so much created, as 'spewed out'. Personally, I feel it's their most accomplished album, a culmination of everything that had preceded it.
The sound is different to anything that had gone prior, maybe touched on in the album 'killing joke' (2), but at the same time has that primitive, tribal sound, this time not defined by the drums and bass but by the guitar and vocals.
If you buy it, stick with it. I missed the first gig in years off the back of this album, being away and not bothered about going as I didn t think much of the album. How wrong I was.