Dream Theater

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Listened to the album today, early highlights were Night Terror, Machine Messiah, Dead Asleep and Turn the Clock, the latter 2 being the best for me. It isn't an amazing album, I'd put it on par with AVFTPOTW and D/T. Overall I enjoyed it.
 
Spaldy said:
The most pointless bass player is surely the guy in Meshuggah.
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I’ll be honest: I didn’t even know they had a bass player. With two 8-strings what’s the point?

Haken’s bassist does some cool stuff, though, and they often have two 8’s chugging away.

Going back to what @Mosh said (and I know he was joking), could you imagine Seventh Wonder without bass? Or with generic root note bass? Ugh.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
As a bass player I’m not a fan of them, though. Tuning any lower than a full step down on a 5-string is basically just mud, and I really don’t like being in the same octave as the guitar because the tone gets lost.
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Yeah, I've never dug 8-string guitars. 7-string/baritone is plenty low for me, leaving room for bass guitar, which just sounds meatier at the very low frequencies.

That said, Awaken the Master is pretty cool. But as Mosh pointed out, it's not that different from their 7-string material.
 
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I do joke for the most part, but didn't Periphery lose a bass player at one point and went on to continue a tour just without a bass player? In all honesty, they have three guitar players playing 8 strings and you can't really hear the bass, so I genuinely question if it's necessary. Same with DT honestly, it's commonly been pointed out over the years that it's as if Myung isn't even there for a lot of their recent material.

But yes, the bands out there that actually do make effective use of their bass players (and I actually think Haken is one) are doing this right and the 8 string chug armies are not.
 

Saw Dream Theater last night in Houston.
Wow!
Knew it would be great but I was blown away by the visuals, performance, and setlist change!

Looking forward to next tour later in the year when they play all the new lp

www.setlist.fm

Dream Theater Setlist at 713 Music Hall, Houston

Get the Dream Theater Setlist of the concert at 713 Music Hall, Houston, TX, USA on February 14, 2025 from the 40th Anniversary Tour 2024-2025 Tour and other Dream Theater Setlists for free on setlist.fm!
www.setlist.fm www.setlist.fm
 
terrell39 said:
Saw Dream Theater last night in Houston.
Wow!
Knew it would be great but I was blown away by the visuals, performance, and setlist change!
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Glad you liked it! I’ve never seen them disappoint.

Really cool to see they played A Rite of Passage; I hope we get that in Chicago instead of Panic Attack (Octavarium is an album I don’t care much for outside of the title track).
 
That would be Invisible Monster. Don't worry, most people would get that wrong since Invisible Monster's title is the most apt thing in the world.
 
Any way you slice it, Octavarium is the best track on an otherwise painfully mediocre album. Outside of The Astonishing it’s easily my least favorite album of theirs.

The Root of All Evil is one of the most ploddingly boring songs the band has ever done. Tracks 2 and 3 are also snoozefests, and track 6 rivals Invisible Monster and Room 137 as the worst song in the discography.

I do like I Walk Beside You, even if it sounds exactly like U2. Panic Attack has some decent moments but for DT the entire thing (outside of the Symphony X-style meter shifting under the solos) feels incredibly pedestrian. Sacrificed Sons is pretty solid, though, and easily runner-up for best song next to the title track.

I think a lot of my distaste for this album is because it followed up the amazingly aggressive and epic Train of Thought, which is a top three album for me. Octavarium also shamelessly rips off of other bands to the point of plagiarism, which is such a letdown from a band that always did their own thing.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
Any way you slice it, Octavarium is the best track on an otherwise painfully mediocre album. Outside of The Astonishing it’s easily my least favorite album of theirs.

The Root of All Evil is one of the most ploddingly boring songs the band has ever done. Tracks 2 and 3 are also snoozefests, and track 6 rivals Invisible Monster and Room 137 as the worst song in the discography.

I do like I Walk Beside You, even if it sounds exactly like U2. Panic Attack has some decent moments but for DT the entire thing (outside of the Symphony X-style meter shifting under the solos) feels incredibly pedestrian. Sacrificed Sons is pretty solid, though, and easily runner-up for best song next to the title track.

I think a lot of my distaste for this album is because it followed up the amazingly aggressive and epic Train of Thought, which is a top three album for me. Octavarium also shamelessly rips off of other bands to the point of plagiarism, which is such a letdown from a band that always did their own thing.
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Sacrificed Sons and These Walls are both better than the title track. I'd also take Panic Attack.

Never Enough is utter garbage. I Walk Beside You is also quite bad.

Overall, it's not a good album. I 100% agree that it's DT wearing their influences on their sleeve to an absolutely detrimental return.
 
I don't know if it's the chill atmosphere, but it's in my top 5. I go back to it A LOT. The way I see it is their best is Scenes from a Memory, my favorite is Awake, followed closely by Systematic Chaos and Octavarium.

I recently bought Distance over Time and I like quite a bit. I've also given the self-titled more spins and it's growing on me. Today Youtubed their newest release and it's better than I thought it'd be. My favorite track is the 19 minute epic, not surprisingly.
 
I like Octavarium a lot and I have even come around a bit on Systematic Chaos recently (I may have posted about it on here even). While I think it contains some of their worst material, the best songs (In the Presence of Enemies, Constant Motion, Dark Eternal Night) have become top DT songs for me.

Distance Over Time is probably my least favorite DT album.
 
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