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Oblarg
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:27 am 
 

The effects-laden guitar in the intro and slow sections is really sweet, but it's not used enough and doesn't really develop into anything.

I love the upbeat section after the first chorus, and if the whole song were that energetic I'd probably dig it. Alas, I can't get into that chorus - it's too long, it doesn't go anywhere, and they repeat it like fifteen fucking times at the end...
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GOOFAM
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:48 pm 
 

I'm pretty in on this one. They wrote something LaBrie can actually sing, which is half the battle with DT these days. Guitar work is pretty inspired, too. I really think Petrucci's reinvented himself as a master of melodic phrasing the last two albums (and his solo album). He's not leaning into the shred stuff anymore. I like that the song stays fairly cerebral but doesn't push anyone past their limits. And it's one of the shorter ones, so I expect we'll see some more muscle-flexing elsewhere, anyway.

This album might be shaping up to be my favorite of the Mangini era, though that's not really a high bar. I'll be happy if it's on par with Black Clouds, and will be thrilled if it exceeds it.

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Lord_Of_Diamonds
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 2:03 am 
 

Kalaratri wrote:
The second single is out:


I'm surprised to see Mangini playing a kit with a comparatively small amount of pieces and comparatively short cymbal height.
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GOOFAM
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 3:48 am 
 

Would assume that's just for ease of filming purposes, but who knows.

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Metal_On_The_Ascendant
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:42 pm 
 

It's leaked and it's better than Distance Over Time I can tell you that much.
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GOOFAM
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:58 pm 
 

Yeah, it's the best thing in the Mangini era. Have to give the last two tracks more of a listen to figure them out, and Transcending Time is the most boring Rush knockoff they've ever done, but the first 4 songs are pretty damn strong. Answering the Call and Sleeping Giant are exactly the sort of things this band should've been doing for the last decade--playing to their strengths while keeping things interesting and fairly novel.

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Lord_Of_Diamonds
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 1:37 pm 
 

I'm listening to it and the Sneap mix is easily my least favorite thing about it so far. Everything sounds so weak. The kick drum and the drums in general sound like something from a cheap metal drum machine plugin, and the guitars are mixed low and have a neutered tone. A major step backward from the massive mix of Distance Over Time, I think.

At least Labrie doesn't seem to be doing any vocal acrobatics that are beyond his current ability. (He still does the thing where every vowel turns to an A when he goes into his high range, though)
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Metal_On_The_Ascendant
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 5:05 am 
 

It's imo their best album of the Mangini era so far outside of the very first one. I don't mind the Sneap production at all as I thought I would initially. The whole thing is Dream Theater as they should sound at this stage of their career - if you're a realist. I'd rank the Mangini era thusly;

A Dramatic Turn of Events
A View from the Top of the World
Distance Over Time
The Astonishing
Dream Theater
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LithoJazzoSphere
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 8:42 am 
 

Only one listen in, but I think I preferred D/T. This one is better than most of their other albums in quite some time I think though, at least in the last 14 years. They seem to have figured out their sound with Mangini now. I could see it becoming stale again at some later point perhaps, but I'm just not likely enough to overplay them enough to reach that point, unlike in my early 00s DT fanboy days.

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Benedict Donald
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:40 am 
 

I quite like the new album; each song is solid and never gets boring.
With that said, this record doesn't seem to contain any songs which I'd rank among their all-time best, as I would recent tunes like "Bridges In the Sky" or "At Wit's End".

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Lord_Of_Diamonds
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:36 am 
 

At Wit's End was a fluke. Somehow it managed to be one of the all time best Dream Theater songs on an album so late in their career. But the rest of the album wasn't like that.
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Metal_On_The_Ascendant
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:47 am 
 

Benedict Donald wrote:
I quite like the new album; each song is solid and never gets boring.
With that said, this record doesn't seem to contain any songs which I'd rank among their all-time best, as I would recent tunes like "Bridges In the Sky" or "At Wit's End".


I'd also add that "On The Backs of Angels" and "The Alien" are the strongest songs they've released as singles in this era.

They seem bent on outwardly wearing their Rush influence in this era too. "The Looking Glass" off the self-titled was like a deliberate retreading of "Limelight" and on this we have "Transcending Time". Not to mention The Astonishing which is a rewrite of 2112 but with a thousand characters and not quite as dismally dystopian.

I know they've always liked Rush but the only thing that comes to mind from the Portnoy years is when they cribbed from "Natural Science" in the "Sacrificed Sons" midsection.
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GOOFAM
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 1:58 pm 
 

Nah, they've ripped Rush for awhile. "The Best of Times" rips from "Spirit of Radio," for instance. "Transcending Time" does dive really fully into that mode, though. Weakest track on the album for me by a long shot. Doesn't have a lot of coherence to it.

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Twisted_Psychology
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 1:59 pm 
 

The production and musicianship are some of the band's liveliest in at least a decade but when it comes to the songwriting... yep, this sure is a late era Dream Theater record all right.

Mike Mangini is undeniably talented and I don't want to take anything away from him, but it's becoming very clear that Dream Theater lost a lot of their personality when Portnoy left the band. I miss the band's weird quirks. I miss the awkwardly oversharing lyrics. I miss the weird Muse, Metallica, and Maiden knockoff songs. I miss the recurring themes and aesthetic motifs. I don't want to say the current iteration of Dream Theater is soulless or anything but it feels like they just kind of exist at this point. It's not bad or even that mediocre, just stagnant.
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Benedict Donald
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 2:58 pm 
 

Twisted_Psychology wrote:
...but it's becoming very clear that Dream Theater lost a lot of their personality when Portnoy left the band. I miss the band's weird quirks. I miss the awkwardly oversharing lyrics. I miss the weird Muse, Metallica, and Maiden knockoff songs. I miss the recurring themes and aesthetic motifs. I don't want to say the current iteration of Dream Theater is soulless or anything but it feels like they just kind of exist at this point. It's not bad or even that mediocre, just stagnant.


This.
People love to hate on Portnoy, but it truly does feel as is something is missing since his departure.

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LithoJazzoSphere
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 3:33 pm 
 

Twisted_Psychology wrote:
I miss the awkwardly oversharing lyrics.


You miss the blame the fans lyrics of "Never Enough"? MP's drumming did have more personality than MM's, though he had a shallower bag of tricks to draw from.

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Metal_On_The_Ascendant
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 4:05 pm 
 

New video!

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Twisted_Psychology
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 5:02 pm 
 

LithoJazzoSphere wrote:
Twisted_Psychology wrote:
I miss the awkwardly oversharing lyrics.


You miss the blame the fans lyrics of "Never Enough"?


Maybe not that theme specifically but the lyrics on stuff like the AA Suite and The Best of Times had a personal touch that doesn't seem to be there nowadays. Even the goofy fantasy shit on Systematic Chaos has more imagination and character than the stock whatever stuff they write about now. A Dramatic Turn of Events had some of that personal touch, presumably due to some Portnoy baggage hanging around, but it doesn't seem like the band is interested in writing songs that are actually *about* anything anymore.
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Metal_On_The_Ascendant
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 5:21 pm 
 

^
James LaBrie writes (wrote) great personal lyrics as well - "Disappear", "Vacant", "Blind Faith", the recent "At Wit's End" all coming to mind. I'd say John Petrucci had the better lyrics in the beginning than Portnoy and he's the one that has become more unimaginative as time has gone by. I think Portnoy would be writing stale lyrics too if he was still around, given how jaded he had become with Dream Theater. Some of his latter era stuff wasn't the best.
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Lord_Of_Diamonds
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 12:58 am 
 

Twisted_Psychology wrote:
I miss the awkwardly oversharing lyrics.


I don't miss that at all. One of the biggest turn-offs on Black Clouds and Silver Linings for me was the lyrics that read like excerpts from Portnoy's diary. I really hope that current DT reads the words to A Nightmare to Remember and is embarrassed that they actually ok'ed that shit when it was written.

And I don't think anyone misses Portnoy's attempts at singing/harsh vocals/rapping. Those were invariably horrid.
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GOOFAM
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:48 am 
 

Lord_Of_Diamonds wrote:
I really hope that current DT reads the words to A Nightmare to Remember and is embarrassed that they actually ok'ed that shit when it was written.


Petrucci wrote that.

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Metal_On_The_Ascendant
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 12:25 pm 
 

I can't say in honesty I've ever truly enjoyed Dream Theater's lyrics. They're fine for what they are mostly but nothing has stood out spectacularly for me in that area after Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. Even Scenes From A Memory's concept and story is not one I feel strongly about. It's a fine album but not among my favorite concept albums.

James LaBrie had an emotive quality in his style that I felt worked well for DT's subject matter. Hence why I disagree with those who think he should be replaced. Best singer for what Dream Theater is about.

....and I like the 12 Steps Suite concept a lot more than SFAM.
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Benedict Donald
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 12:58 pm 
 

Metal_On_The_Ascendant wrote:
I like the 12 Steps Suite concept a lot more than SFAM.


Me, too. (Taking nothing away from SFAM which is, of course, fantastic.)

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tahu157
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:32 pm 
 


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MetalVermont
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 10:46 pm 
 

You’re an idiot.

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hallowed78
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 3:48 am 
 

Ever since Octavarium, I've found it harder and harder to differentiate their albums one from the other. They all sound and feel almost the same, same soaring Petrucci melodies, LaBrie using same phrasing, even changing the drummer did nothing to change this feeling. They still make an enjoyable listen, but for a progressive band they are, there is a lot of safe bets in the songs.

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Empyreal
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:18 am 
 

hallowed78 wrote:
Ever since Octavarium, I've found it harder and harder to differentiate their albums one from the other. They all sound and feel almost the same, same soaring Petrucci melodies, LaBrie using same phrasing, even changing the drummer did nothing to change this feeling. They still make an enjoyable listen, but for a progressive band they are, there is a lot of safe bets in the songs.


This is what I've been saying, it's like they've started having identical productions, writing styles, vocal lines, etc on every album. I miss the scattershot musical adventurousness of Octavarium and Systematic Chaos. Of course that was just when I happened to get into metal in general so it's biased I'm sure.
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GOOFAM
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 10:01 am 
 

I dunno, y'all, the "sameness" criticism about the last five albums seems really odd to me when you're talking about a group of albums that has The Astonishing right in the middle of it. This is also the first album made up primarily of 7+ minute songs since Dramatic Turn, and their first without a ballad in the Mangini era. Sneap's production is also pretty different from the previous albums. None of which is to argue that this album is some sort of striking new ground--it definitely has a "play to our strengths" aspect to it--but I don't think this is a band that has played to their strengths in over a decade.

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Empyreal
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:06 am 
 

I'll give the new one an honest shot. I did think The Astonishing was the best of the newer ones so far actually.
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tahu157
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 5:31 pm 
 

MetalVermont wrote:
You’re an idiot.

Thanks. You are too.

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MetalVermont
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 10:40 pm 
 

tahu157 wrote:
MetalVermont wrote:
You’re an idiot.

Thanks. You are too.


Well, maybe, but at least I haven’t proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt yet.

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~Guest 394415
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:27 pm 
 

.


Last edited by ~Guest 394415 on Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:44 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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MetalVermont
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:32 pm 
 

Did you mean to submit that as your review in the reviews section?

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~Guest 394415
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:35 pm 
 

.


Last edited by ~Guest 394415 on Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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LithoJazzoSphere
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2021 5:13 pm 
 

And people say the Arch Enemy thread went to shit...

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tahu157
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2021 5:21 pm 
 

exsiccation wrote:
MetalVermont wrote:
Did you mean to submit that as your review in the reviews section?

This is why I almost never post on forums or social media anymore. The second I open my mouth some asshole emerges and starts slinging shit at me, and I wonder why I even bothered. Get fucked.

Can you post whatever it was that you wrote again? Reading people's thoughts on Dream Theater albums is always super interesting to me.

MetalVermont wrote:
tahu157 wrote:
MetalVermont wrote:
You’re an idiot.

Thanks. You are too.


Well, maybe, but at least I haven’t proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt yet.

One of us posted a very obvious joke and the other took it at face value.

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Gas_Snake
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:25 am 
 

Yo who's this guy wiping his own posts and clogging up the thread? Did he have anything to say about this?

That aside, these guys just kinda have individual songs that I like, and most of them are among the shorter ones. And most of them are not because of LaBrie's increasingly deteriorating voice. I'm in no hurry to check this out, last album started with a song where the vocals were layered so damn hard I couldn't take it seriously.
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MetalVermont
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2021 11:27 am 
 

tahu157 wrote:
exsiccation wrote:
MetalVermont wrote:
Did you mean to submit that as your review in the reviews section?

This is why I almost never post on forums or social media anymore. The second I open my mouth some asshole emerges and starts slinging shit at me, and I wonder why I even bothered. Get fucked.

Can you post whatever it was that you wrote again? Reading people's thoughts on Dream Theater albums is always super interesting to me.


Well, maybe, but at least I haven’t proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt yet.

One of us posted a very obvious joke and the other took it at face value.[/quote]

Well I guess I’m an idiot for not realizing it was a joke! As far as the other guy goes, it was a honest question but he took it the wrong way.

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Kaleva
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2021 3:15 pm 
 

Don't know if this album will get many spins in the future, but I've already enjoyed it more than anything post Black Clouds & Silver Linings. It's proggier and some instrumetal passages are closer to Liquid Tension Experiment rather than DT recent albums.

LaBrie doesn't push himself too much. He seems to be in a comfort zone. Nothing too impressive but it works and his voice isn't masked under a thousand layers and weird effects.

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FirebathDan
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2021 8:06 pm 
 

I like it. It’s good. Best of the Mangini-era, easily. The drumming on this is insane. Tasteful use of the 8 string on “Awaken The Master”. Loving how way upfront Myung is in the mix. Lots of great playing all around.

Still need repeated listens to pick up all the finer details. But this might be my first top 10 year end album from the Mangini-era.
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