Taskbar isn't transparent after upgrading to 1903

As the topic suggests, after I upgraded from 1809->1903, I seem to have lost the transparency of the Taskbar as seen in the screenshot below. Or maybe it's still transparent, but just barely. Looked so much better before upgrading to 1903.

I already did some searching and found a couple of tips such as disable/enable Transparency effects under Settings-Personalization-Colors. But to no avail.

I'm on Windows 10 Pro and if of importance, my GPU is a 2080 Ti from MSI running the latest Nvidia drivers.

Thanks for any tips on how to get the nice look of the Taskbar back that was present before upgrading to 1903!

Thanks.

I did see there are external software but I try to keep my PC as clean as possible and avoid installing things if not absolutely necessary.

But maybe that's the only way in 1903?

I really don't understand why MS decided to mess around with this when it was already perfect!