Well to my ears everything up to SexSells/Cruch era, has a clean organic sound where even if there is heavy instrumentation (and in this regard I'd say These Days probably has even more volume instrumentaly than KTF), you can make up the different instruments and there are variations in dynamics etc.

Bounce is some intermediate thing where however the cleaner acoustic songs sound too "shiny" for me - but ok I take that

Similarly the TLFR production is too soft and boring, even if it is 'organic'.

Then comes the wall of sound, with a few exceptions here and there, notably in LH.

I think it is hard to return to a more "real" sound because there is no real band playing and rehearsing the songs before recording an album. When all orchestration is prepared by Shanks in some midi program and then Tico, Hugh and Dave come to record them, it is normal that we get some totally different music.

EXAMPLE : Take the bass line in Love aint nothing but a four letter word. Listen to the original demo and see how the drums very much follow that groove and occasionally the guitar doubles in that as well. Finally listen to the melodic fillings of the keyboards when there are pauses in the vocal melody.

This is some ****in cool music there! Do you think Jon wrote this?? It is the band coming together at the moment and interpreting Jon's initial idea which would be just some chords and a vocal. And then this whole interaction that creates the song.

Shanks on his computer would never think of a groove this great. Not just because he is alone with a computer. It is just not his style.