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

Satisfied with the results?

  • Total voters
    10
Finally Free
The Root Of All Evil - a rather plebeian continuation of the 12 step suite. Simplistic, not overly catchy, and mostly just meh.
The Answer Lies Within - better ballads doth this band have.
I Walk Beside You - no thanks.
Panic Attack - I like this song, but like most of the "metal" songs post-TOT, it sounds hollow.
Never Enough - garbage.

Full disclosure: The only reason I'm not voting for Octavarium is because of the last 11 minutes. That second half is pretty phenomenal, but the 13 minutes that come before bore me to death. The Floyd-worship intro is a waste of time. I will be voting for this pretty soon.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
Panic Attack - I like this song, but like most of the "metal" songs post-TOT, it sounds hollow.
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That's a good way to describe it. There are some good ones, Constant Motion and The Enemy Inside come to mind right away, but they're missing the magic of the stuff on ToT.

Detective Beauregard said:
I actually love Rudess's synth sound in this song (you won't hear me say that often). It has this "Metroid" feel, or some other video game -- maybe the original Doom in the unison? Whatever is going on, I like it. And the Muse influences are so painfully blatant that I'm surprised there wasn't a lawsuit. Too bad the vocals and lyrics in this song are trash.
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Speaking of Metroid, does this sound familiar?
Detective Beauregard said:
This I will agree with, except for Count of Tuscany (my favorite ending to a DT epic, just behind Illumination Theory). With Octavarium they hit that big grandiose ending that they just can't seem to get away from, although it really does work here. In Six Degrees? Not so much.
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Yea that's one thing I wanted to mention. As much as I like Six Degrees as a song, something about the ending just feels unsatisfying. I also feel that way about Transatlantic's "album length epic", The Whirlwind. But I also feel that there are a few things in both ACOS and Six Degrees that the band is trying out but only perfected with Octavarium.
 
Lots of releases from this era. Two new covers albums (Made in Japan and The Dark Side of the Moon, with a DVD for the latter), two live DVDs, and they also appeared on the Gigantour tour that year with two songs on the DVD release. The Gigantour is interesting because it contains the only widely released version of The Glass Prison (definitely higher quality than the one on the Bucharest DVD). I haven't watched the Santiago dvd yet, but I plan on doing so either today or tomorrow.

A pretty good companion to Score, containing 9 songs that aren't on there. The Score DVD is awesome, probably my favorite DT dvd. Awesome setlist full of rarities and a really good bonus disc with bonus songs and a documentary.
 
Mosh said:
Yea that's one thing I wanted to mention. As much as I like Six Degrees as a song, something about the ending just feels unsatisfying. I also feel that way about Transatlantic's "album length epic", The Whirlwind. But I also feel that there are a few things in both ACOS and Six Degrees that the band is trying out but only perfected with Octavarium.
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I relistened to Six Degrees (the song) about 4-5 times for this Survivor and my enjoyment of it really grew with each listen. However, every time I start enjoying it more - the ending becomes an even bigger letdown. It's like recognizing quality in something only to be constantly disappointed. Six Degrees is like the Lost/Sopranos/Dexter of songs, it builds and builds and then you get to the finale and it's just a pile of meh.

Octavarium, IMO, is the exact opposite. The ending is absolutely stellar, I just don't particularly enjoy the build-up.
 
On second thought, the end of Illumination Theory comes really close to rivaling Octavarium. Will get back to that when the time comes.

I think the biggest problem with the end of SDOIT is there's no real buildup to it. The start of the Losing Time section is huge, then it comes down for one verse and instantly back to huge again.
 
Mosh said:
On second thought, the end of Illumination Theory comes really close to rivaling Octavarium. Will get back to that when the time comes.

I think the biggest problem with the end of SDOIT is there's no real buildup to it. The start of the Losing Time section is huge, then it comes down for one verse and instantly back to huge again.
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I think the build up at the end of SDOIT was 2:23 on About to Crash (reprise). Although 1:08 of Losing Time really builds for me too. The final verse is a really nice ending for the song and wraps it up.
 
I think they were going for an A Day In The Life reference with the ending of Six Degrees. Unfortunately, it, for me at least, completely disrupts all the enjoyment I have at the moment from listening to the entire big suite extravaganza or something like that.

A Day In The Life is almost perfect when it does it, though.
 
Can't say I hear that, care to elaborate? It's an interesting comparison.
 
Oh right, yea you're probably right on that. I think that was cool, as is carrying it over to the next album.

I realized yesterday that not only are the ends of the DT albums connected from SFAM to Octavarium, but they are also separated by whole steps (like the songs on Octavarium). SFAM ends in D, Six Degrees in E, and Train of Thought in F. So it seems like they maybe were playing around with the concept a few years before Octavarium.
 
Hey, while we're at it, someone should start a Video Game Music survivor!

...no, not really. It wouldn't work squat on this forum.
 
The Santiago DVD is really cool. It's fun seeing a lower budget production version of the Octavarium tour. It's a stark contrast to the Score DVD and it's cool seeing the band just jam out with minimal equipment. A good amount of songs not on Score too, which is nice. Plus you get the Octavarium songs without the orchestra, so it's a more bare bones version which is interesting.
If you take the two Gigantour songs, all of Score, and Honor Thy Father (which was a bonus track also from this tour), there is a grand total of 26 different songs available from this tour (not counting the three covers albums). With Iron Maiden, we get 15-16 songs from each tour at the most.
These Ytsejam releases are awesome, I hope one day DT and MP can put aside their differences and allow more vault releases to happen.
Some other things:
It's awesome hearing the crowd sing along to the Scenes songs. That album must be especially huge in South America, they also played it in its entirety at the two night stands instead of covering an album like they usually do.

I would be happy if DT never played anything from SDOIT ( the song) again. Even if it's the whole piece. The first disc is criminally overlooked and the title track just doesn't work that well live. It's worse when they aren't playing the whole thing. Feel the same way about Rush breaking up 2112.

I'll have to watch Score and see how it compares, but I think this is where Petrucci starts to lose it. He flubs so many solos and unisons, there's a point in Fatal Tragedy where he just plays a bunch of random notes during a unison with JR without even really trying to get any right. Maybe it was a bad night for him, but I think this was about when he started to become more inconsistent live. To really drive home the change, check out his solo on As I Am on this video compared to the one on Budokan. His soloing starts to get less inventive on Octavarium as well. Again, I'll have to watch Score again, but I think Train of Thought/Budokan might actually be his peak as a player.

John Myung, on the other hand, doesn't seem to make any mistakes. He seems to have a reputation as someone who's role in the band has been passive, but his playing has never seemed to dip in quality.

There's a colossal fuck up in Sacrificed Sons.

Worth mentioning that JR didn't bring his Moog to this show, so all those parts in Octavarium are performed on his normal keyboard using a sampled sound. Kinda interesting.

Add Spirit Carries On to the list of DT songs that I wouldn't mind them never playing again. Although I suppose that's the closest thing they have to a Fear Of the Dark.

On the flip side, they could play Metropolis at every show and I wouldn't mind.

I'm with John Petrucci on medleys. Sometimes they're cool, most times I'd rather they just play the whole song.
 
Actually, two more live releases I forgot about. A Walk Beside the Band and Romeavarium, two DVDs released exclusively for the fan club. I'm actually surprised MP didn't put them on a bonus disc for the Santiago bootleg, as that's a bit bare compared to the other DVDs, no special features.

 
Well I'm way overdue, but here are a few thoughts on the past 3 albums.

Six Degrees
I feel conflicted about this album, overall. I love the first disc, but the 2nd doesn't do a whole lot for me.

To start with, both The Glass Prison and Blind Faith are absolutely fantastic. I would put both songs in my top 10, and I'm very glad to see that they were able to advance. I was a little worried that my adoration for Blind Faith would be in the minority, but you can all pat yourselves on the back for getting that one right. :D

Misunderstood is a song that is vastly underrated, in my opinion. It's not quite at the same level as the first two songs, but I still wish it would have stuck around for longer.

The Great Debate, however, is a major weak spot for me. The music is alright, but I just can't get past the lyrics. They sound like something written by a high school sophomore who has a report due in six hours. I agree with the message, but the delivery completely falls flat with me. I feel pretty much the same way about Sacrificed Sons, but to a slightly lesser extent.

I'm glad 6DOIT was considered a single song in this game, because it made the decision to vote for it extremely easy. There are some decent moments sprinkled throughout, but not enough to justify sitting through the whole 42 minute ordeal. Even when taken out of context of the whole song, none of the individual tracks stand out very much. I'm disappointed, but not surprised, that this song was promoted.

Train of Thought
I don't have a whole lot to say, other than this album completely fucking rules! Right now I would put it as my #1 DT album. This Dying Soul, Endless Sacrifice, Stream of Consciousness, and In The Name of God are all a 10/10. Vacant works well as an intro to SoC. Even As I Am, which would have to be the weakest song of the album, is better than at least 50% of the songs on every other DT album. (Ok, maybe it's more like 30%, but you get the idea.)

Octovarium
When I first started listing to DT, this was my favorite album. Right now, I'm really not sure why that was. I still like it quite a bit, but I currently have it below the previous 3 albums.

The Root of All Evil is solid, but not outstanding. Definitely the weakest of the Twelve-step Suite.

The Answer Lies Within isn't the best DT ballad, but it's still pretty good. I wont be voting for it here, but I won't lose any sleep if it ends up getting eliminated.

These Walls just keeps growing and growing on me after every listen. My #3 favorite of the album.

I walk Beside You - meh

Panic Attack is probably a big reason why I used to like this album so much. While I don't quite love this song as much as I used to, it's still great nonetheless. My #2 favorite of the album.

I'm unsure how to feel about Never Enough. It's not bad, but it doesn't quite grab me either. Overall I have to say it's pretty forgettable. I don't mean that in a completely negative way, (If it was a really bad song, I'd remember it :p) Just that it never sticks out in my mind whenever I think about this album.

Sacrificed Sons suffers from The Great Debate syndrome. Maybe it's just a problem with me, but the lyrics to these songs are just way to overt, I guess you can say. If you're going to write a song about 9/11, it could be done a lot better. To this song's credit, however, the instrumental parts in the middle are pretty good.

Octavarium - not much needs to be said. A top 10 song, and my clear favorite of the album.

Now that all that's out of the way, Finally Free, I Walk Beside You, Never Enough, Sacrificed Sons get my votes.
 
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