DREAM THEATER SURVIVOR 2016: Results -> A Change Of Seasons wins!

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    10
I thought it was a very good setlist too. I wish I could have had the opportunity to see them. But they should have played The Bigger Picture. I'm still confused as to why they haven't yet.
 
AFAIK that's the only time they've played it since the Scenes tour. There's also the Systematic Chaos tour medley that had parts of it but it wasn't very good IMO.
 
Fatal Tragedy
Home
The Spirit Carries On
Misunderstood
The Great Debate
Disappear
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
Endless Sacrifice
Honor Thy Father

I'm not the biggest fan of Six Degrees and Train Of Thought, as you can see. I find it slightly weird when I'm looking at it, after all, Six Degrees WAS once one of my favourites. But now...eh? The Glass Prison and Blind Faith are amazing beyond belief then I slowly lose interest.

Train And Thought features two ok songs at the start, then it becomes a snoozefest for the next two songs. And both of them are 10 minute plus! I considered voting for Vacant but I recently heard it on Score and it was amazing there and it's perfect as a introduction to Stream Of Consciousness. On its own, it's not as good but still very good. Stream Of Consciousness has a decent mid section and awesome everything else.

In The Name Of God is on the same level as The Glass Prison but not nearly as good as Blind Faith (that one is in my personal top ten as you may or may not know). That means...it's pretty amazing.
 
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I read them :) I actually went back each time to read your and Mosh's essays on each album while I was listening :P
 
Drinking an entire glass of wine while listening to The Glass Prison like
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Six Degrees is my favorite DT album. I usually say it's tied with Awake because they're really close but today I'm going to say it narrowly beats out Awake. With this album they're firing on all cylinders and are really flexing their musical muscles. Every song on this gets a 10/10 from me. In other words, I get the most amount of enjoyment out of this album that I think I possibly can. It's pretty close to flawless, I can think of maybe 2 or 3 minor criticisms of the entire thing. It showcases everything that's great about DT: their technical abilities, their heaviness, their melodic side, and of course their epics. Each song is like its own world and the whole album is so immersive. This album was also a huge turning point for DT. After this, the focus was almost exclusively on long songs (until DT12 and The Astonishing at least, we'll see what happens on DT14) and Jordan Rudess' influence is fully realized. He contributes a lot to this album and in many ways is the MVP. It's a long album, but there's so much variety in the songs that it goes by really quick. Each song is given the appropriate amount of time to develop and breathe without anything feeling too stretched out. Which is an amazing feat when the average length is ten minutes and one of the songs is 42 minutes.

The Glass Prison - Awesome song. It's 13 minutes and it stays relentless the entire time. It's really impressive how it never gets boring or repetitive and they never felt the urge to put in a soft section or do a crazy proggy section. There's the keyboard/guitar tradeoff toward the end but the playing is still aggressive from JR and JP and as a whole it works. Easily the best heavy song DT has done. It's just awesome riff after awesome riff. Basically what Metallica tried to do with Death Magnetic, but nowhere near as coherent and awesome. I also think JLB's voice works well on this tune, but the processing definitely helps that a bit. On other heavy DT songs he's a bit of a problem but he contrasts the heaviness well on this one.
Interesting that the album essentially starts with MP doing lead vocals. I think his vocal parts work really well in this song and the call and response thing is very cool.
One extremely minor gripe i have with this one is the way it ends. When they played this live they would do a big pause of silence before coming back in for the final chorus which was really cool. I wish they would've put that on the album. But the ending is still awesome either way. MP's drumming on this is also great, he steals the show (appropriately).

Blind Faith - This is possibly my favorite song on the album. There's no other song like it in the DT discography and it's really unfortunate that they never did more like this, instead of rehashing The Glass Prison several times. It's proggy but in a much more atmospheric way than the other DT epics. You really hear their U2/Marillion influence in this and it's a very cool blend. I also love what JR does on this song with the more ambient stuff. It really brings the song to the next level. I also love the way this one builds up. The whole verse-prechorus-verse-prechorus-chorus thing has been a signature DT move since the beginning, but this is one of those songs where it's extremely effective. The song is constantly building up until the final chorus which is immense. And once again MP's vocals really do the song justice.

For the guitar nerds out here, this is the first time we hear JP really experiment with alternate tunings. He did Drop D on Home but he really goes nuts on this album. This song uses a baritone guitar that's tuned all the way down to A standard. If you want a comparison, imagine taking the fifth string on your standard tuned guitar and dropping it an octave. That's the sixth string on JP's guitar. Personally when I play this song I just use a seven string and tune it down a whole step except for the 3rd string which is just tuned down a half step. The guitar solo on this is also totally Steve Morse inspired and the keyboard/guitar unison is probably the single most difficult passage in the DT discography. Even on the album it sounds like JP could barely play it. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not one take. The instrumental section as a whole is awesome and really shows how much of a great addition to the band JR is.

I also really dig JLB's lyrics.

Misunderstood - Because of the way DT typically write songs (jamming together), their songs usually translate perfectly live. Which is probably why they're able to play 99% of their discography. This song belongs in the 1% that probably doesn't translate well live. Granted I've never seen it live and I don't recall any videos, but I wouldn't expect this song to go down live as well as it does on the album. There's so much studio wizardry on it, it's easily the most product of the studio track since Space Dye Vest. But I really like that. All the effects are really cool and I love the backmasked JP solo (read up on that if you don't know the background of it). Also a song with a great build up. I always get pumped when the heavy part kicks in. That said, it's probably my least favorite but still 10/10.

The Great Debate - Mega Tool worship, but probably the most typical DT song on the album. I like this one a lot, it keeps the atmosphere present on the whole first disc but with awesome riffs and cool proggy bits. MP also does a ton of really great grooves throughout the song. One thing I really like about MP's playing is how he can take a groove or a rhythm and accent it differently to make it sound almost entirely different. Or when he plays different time signatures under the same riff. The Mirror is entirely built around this and there's a lot of that on The Great Debate too. My favorite example is shortly before the instrumental section where they're playing in 12/8 until MP starts a fill in 6/4 and comes back with a 6/4 groove, making JP change the accents. I know this is an MP thing because it used to be a staple and DT haven't done it since he left. The instrumental section as a whole is awesome. I really like the unison at the end. The unisons on this album are so much more creative than a lot of what they did later. This song is a perfect example. It's not the most complicated thing you've heard, it's actually pretty simple for DT standards, but it's really satisfying to listen to and perfectly builds up to the recap of the main riff.

Disappear - I can't believe all the votes this is getting. Well I can, given how much this forum hates ballads. :p But seriously WTF. This is the best DT ballad. The lyrics are heart wrenching and they blended the atmosphere/ambient stuff they're experimenting with on this album with really great songwriting. The final chorus on this song is one of the best DT moments. The most emotive DT song without a doubt.

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - The first DT title track. This is a tough one. It's almost like a mini concept album, but it definitely has the coherency of a single song. I think it only trips up once and that's during Solitary Shell. On its own, Solitary Shell is great but it really messes with the flow of the song. I think it'd feel much more unified without it. And a 36 minute epic is still impressive. :p I like the more orchestral/symphonic rock sound of this, it's very similar to Yes. As far as structure goes, it's much closer to a Symphony than a prog rock epic. The way the major themes are outlined in the overture and how there are clear breaks between each movement. It all wraps up at the end really nicely too. I think breaking it up and compromising by tracking it as a single song on live albums was smart. Again, a lot of symphonies are broken up by movements on CDs.

It also really feels like a contrast to Disc 1, which gives it an identity and keeps this album from being exhausting. One problem I have with The Astonishing, as much as I enjoy it, is that you spend almost 80 minutes (a traditional double album in itself) listening to the first disc and then you put on disc 2 and it is pretty much the same thing for an additional hour. It can be exhausting to listen to and I still think the album would've been better if it was one disc. But to get back on topic, Disc 2 is totally different from Disc 1 to the point that some people only like one or the other. I think that's awesome, DT should divide their fanbase. They are capable of putting a ton of variety in their music and this album is proof of that.

Another thing I like about the song is how it is nothing like ACOS, their previous "side long" epic. There are a lot of prog bands out there who have a formula for their epics and it gets exhausting. Whenever DT does one it's always unique. This is more symphonic and almost has a broadway vibe to it. It's like a mini musical and in many ways a precursor to The Astonishing. Also like The Astonishing, I think it would've been cool if they brought in guest vocalists for this.

It's also worth noting that for a 42 minute song, this stays really grounded. There's only one super technical part (Test That Stumped Them All) and even that is pretty tame by DT standards. The instrumental sections are more recapping main themes and bridging songs together. In the whole song, there are two keyboard solos and three guitar solos and they're all different sounding. My favorite is the guitar solo on Goodnight Kiss which is among JP's best solos. Probably top 5, maybe even top 3. There's also a very cool jazz guitar solo in Solitary Shell which is one of the few times DT has gone totally jazzy.

Overall, a really ambitious piece that I think they pulled off really amazingly. I wish they'd stop playing War Inside My Head/Test That Stumped Them All though. That, along with Spirit Carries On, is one of the few DT songs that are overrepresented on the DVDs.

Obligatory ranking:

1: Blind Faith
2: The Great Debate
3: Disappear
4: Six Degrees
5: The Glass Prison
6: Misunderstood

Easily the hardest to rank. Like I said, each song is a perfect 10 for me, so it's really arbitrary. I'm just going to abstain from voting for Six Degrees songs and let you guys decide. :p

I'm going to try to get to ToT tomorrow or thursday, it has been a busy week though and I might not get a chance. If I take too long I'll vote before listening, as I'm pretty sure I know what I want to vote for already. Although I haven't heard it in a long time and might feel differently about some songs.
 
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