"The Cigarette after the lay" Lovely analogy, lauscho, on your thoughts about The Messenger. But I really enjoyed the record. It's different in a lot of ways, such as there not being any guitar-heavy tracks, it takes a lot of balls for a band to not add a staple part of their music to a new record. Kinda like a businessman going into a meeting without his suitcase.
The record will take a few listens for me to get completely into, but, at the moment I'm into Burning in the Skies and Waiting for the End. If you ask me, I would agree that a couple of the tracks could have been better off melded together, such as the first two tracks and Empty Spaces could have been worked into the end of Burning in the Skies, like that short Interlude that's at the end of Shadow of the Day that segues into What I've Done.
With that said and done, I would have to rate A Thousand Suns 8.5/10 for being original, of course they didn't do what made them the best selling debut band of the 2000s', but decided to try a different route that may not seem like a smart decision by many. For instance, listen to Pink Floyd's first album, 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' and then listen to their legendary album, 'The Dark Side of the Moon' they sound like completely different bands.