Dream Theater

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
ADTOE has actually grown on me a whole lot since it first came out. I'd personally take it over both Black Clouds and DT12. Beneath The Surface and Build Me Up Break Me Down are the only tracks I find Somewhat weak, everything else is great.
 
ADToE was probably the first DT album I listened to in its entirety. I thought it was amazing until I heard albums like Scenes and Black Clouds. I do listen to some songs on it quite often but the full album very rarely. There is a lot of wasted potential in the sense that most songs have very good parts but they are surrounded by weaker ones.
Lost Not Forgotten starts out strong but then proceeds into a ridiculous wank-solo, which on the other hand is impressive in its incredible complexity. The song is too long.
Bridges in the Sky has a top-notch chorus and is overall a stronger song.
Outcry is also a good song, but tends to drag a bit.
Still, the best ones on the album are Breaking All Illusions and This is the Life. Songs I barely ever listen to are Break me Down, Far From Heaven and Beneath the Surface.
As for sound, the production is a step down from Black Clouds: it sounds muddier and too polished.

TLDR: A good album but not top-tier, what's peculiar is that every song has awesome parts and weak parts.
 
That album is like a tent with five poles, where one of the poles is jammed in there and the tent sags in the middle because of the bad design.

The next album was designed to hang properly on its five supports and is much more comfortable.
 
Honestly, I want to see DT when they come to Chicago, but I just can't buy tickets until I hear this album and know if it will be worth it. Cause right now...it looks terrible.
 
DT has never been a good lyrics band. John Petrucci had his moments in the 90s, Kevin Moore wrote some cool stuff and that's about it. Their last full blown concept album/rock opera wasn't any less cheesy than this is shaping up to be and look how great of an album that turned out.

I'm just glad they're still trying different things.
 
Mosh said:
DT has never been a good lyrics band. John Petrucci had his moments in the 90s, Kevin Moore wrote some cool stuff and that's about it. Their last full blown concept album/rock opera wasn't any less cheesy than this is shaping up to be and look how great of an album that turned out.

I'm just glad they're still trying different things.
Click to expand...

6DOIT or SFAM? I love SFAM and I find 6DOIT (Disc 2) to be incredibly lame and cheesy and mostly unlistenable.

I have no problems with cheesy concepts, but I just can't get enthused for a 3 hour concert of nothing but that album without knowing the album really well. I feel like a fair-weather Maiden fan during the AMOLAD days.

It's a shame they released tickets before releasing the album, though. If this album catches me off guard and I absolutely love it, I'll be stuck with nosebleed seats or none at all. Oh well.
 
I'm referring to Scenes, Knick.

Thats fair about the concert though and I too am waiting until I hear the album to buy tickets. Unless it's Systematic Chaos level of bad, I'll probably go anyway.
 
Systematic Chaos is still my #1 album. Maybe even of all time. I love 6DOIT and 8 and everything dearly, but SC still wins in the long run. There you go :p
 
Mosh said:
DT has never been a good lyrics band. John Petrucci had his moments in the 90s, Kevin Moore wrote some cool stuff and that's about it.
Click to expand...
I think the best lyricist "was" John Myung (nothing tops "Trial of Tears", "Learning to Live" and "Lifting Shadows of a Dream" in my opinion) but he never wrote a lot. Honorable mention for James LaBrie's "Blind Faith", but yet again, too little input to compete.
I prefer Mike Portnoy's lyrics to Petrucci's who really sounds like a student in a creative writing class. Maybe it is because of Portnoy's departure, hence more pressure and less time to come up with lyrics, but the latest albums are (more) ridiculous as far as lyrics are concerned.
 
Saapanael said:
I absolutely love the clean guitar that starts at the 1 minute mark and also the solo thingy at the very end. Beautiful vocals as well.
Click to expand...
There's some good guitar stuff going on there for sure. In general, JP's guitar playing is one of the few salvageable things on the album. I dunno about the vocals though, wasn't one of JLB's best moments to say the least.

My main issue with the song is the instrumental section. It feels like they shoehorned it in and it just isn't very interesting. The ballad-y parts are ok but even those bits kinda drag. The whole thing just feels like a chore to listen to. At least with other lesser DT songs, like Burning My Soul, they're over soon enough. The 15 minute length on this song just makes it all the more unbearable.

As far as lyricists go, Kevin Moore was easily the best, Petrucci in his prime being a close second. JLB, Portnoy, and Myung all have good lyrical moments but I think JP is the most consistent (he also writes a lot more which helps). Petrucci had a lot of really great lyrics on the first four albums, it was starting with Scenes that he started to drop the ball. But he still had his moments. He has a lot of good ideas too, like I really love the concept of In the Presence Of Enemies but the execution falls short. Which is what has me a little bit worried about The Astonishing's lyrics. But if the music works then it'll be a nonissue.

DT12 was a step up for him I thought, there were some really good lyrical moments.
 
I love Breaking All Illusions and Beneath the Surface. The latter may well be the most emotive song Dream Theater has ever written, because let's face it - while Space-Dye Vest is sad, it was written about some picture of a girl in a magazine who Moore didn't even know. I also love Bridges in the Sky and the non-instrumental sections of Outcry, but the rest of the album is filler to me.

Mosh said:
My main issue with the song is the instrumental section. It feels like they shoehorned it in and it just isn't very interesting.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. The minutes leading up to it are sorrowful and emotional, then BOOM! we've suddenly been warped to Phrygian wankery that doesn't fit the song AT ALL. Then it comes back in and it's big and epic and grand again, and it feels like those few minutes in the middle drag the song WAY down.

I feel the same way about the instrumental section of Endless Sacrifice, which is pretty much my only musical complaint on Train of Thought.
 
This posting will show I am too picky but...When watching Dream Theater live, the guitarist John is on my right. Yet when listening to a studio recording, when a song has a break and only the guitar is playing, the guitar is in the left channel. Examples are early in Illumination Theory, the break in Rite of Passage, the middle of Erotomania, the first guitar you hear during the intro to Bridges in the Sky.

The reason I mention this is I do not agree with the choice to put John's guitar in the left channel, it should be in the right because from the audience's point of view, that is where he is. For this reason, I only listen to these songs with earbuds on so I can switch them so I hear the band from the same point of view as I see them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top