Dream Theater

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16. Astonishing
15. Octavarium
14. WDADU
13. Parasomnia
12. BC&SL
11. D/T
10. AVFTTOTW
09. Systematic Chaos
08. ADTOE
07. Scenes from a Memory
06. Six Degrees
05. FII
04. Dream Theater
03. Awake
02. Train of Thought
01. Images & Words

...but this changes constantly (aside from the bottom two).
 
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Abas said:
Same, really. I think there only are 3 or 4 albums that I regularly rotate from start to finish. Rest of them are bits and pieces
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Yeah, I have a very transactional relationship with Dream Theater’s music. Sometimes I want to listen to Images And Words or Scenes From A Memory all the way through, and occasionally I might want to hear a standalone track from something else, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan in the traditional sense.
 
Jer said:
Yeah, I have a very transactional relationship with Dream Theater’s music. Sometimes I want to listen to Images And Words or Scenes From A Memory all the way through, and occasionally I might want to hear a standalone track from something else, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan in the traditional sense.
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I was a fan when Awake was first released.
That one and Images remain my alltime favourites.
After Octavarium I was less enthusiastic about them though.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
A lot of people love that album, but to me that was the start of them blatantly ripping off of other bands’ sounds. I don’t even hate any particular song on the record (except for Never Enough), but the overall feel to me is just Dream Theater paint-by-numbers.
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To be fair, I would argue that every album since Train of Thought was a paint-by-numbers approach. They are good albums, but predictable.
 
Ascendingthethrone said:
To be fair, I would argue that every album since Train of Thought was a paint-by-numbers approach. They are good albums, but predictable.
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Absolutely true. Dream Theater stopped being an actual progressive band decades ago. They are mostly now progressive musicians playing within traditional song structures.

MindRuler said:
U2 and Muse to name a few.
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And some of them twice!
 
Octavarium has a special place in my heart. Not all of the songs are great, not all of them are original (similarities with other bands have been pointed out) but I love the sound design, the imagery, the artistic package if you will. Octavarium the song is something unique, it takes a long time to get going but culminates in perhaps the greatest couple of minutes in their whole catalogue, and I enjoy the slow acoustic buildup as well. The Razor’s Edge keyboard part is one of the most beautiful Rudess ever played. As a guitar player, I’m a fan of the sounds Petrucci had at the time. He also released Suspended Animation the same year which is a masterclass in shred guitar. Systematic Chaos already brought a different tonal palette.
 
Saapanael said:
Octavarium has a special place in my heart. Not all of the songs are great, not all of them are original (similarities with other bands have been pointed out) but I love the sound design, the imagery, the artistic package if you will. Octavarium the song is something unique, it takes a long time to get going but culminates in perhaps the greatest couple of minutes in their whole catalogue, and I enjoy the slow acoustic buildup as well. The Razor’s Edge keyboard part is one of the most beautiful Rudess ever played.
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To each their own. The title track is definitely the juiciest cut of meat on the record, although I could’ve done without the nearly 4-minute spacey keyboard intro since I’ve never been a fan of a lot of that Pink Floyd-esque “you gotta be high to like… see the music” sound. As a bassist I love my boy Myung’s bluesy groove in the 3rd(?) part, though. Also the “trapped inside this Octavarium” climax is incredible, and the ending is certainly grandiose.

The only other songs I revisit on the album are Sacrificed Sons (for the cool instrumental bits) and oddly enough the U2 “cover” as overall I think it’s a good song. Everything else is either generic (opening track, These Walls), boring (the second track), or just plain bad (Never Enough). Panic Attack is… fine.
 
MindRuler said:
Suspended Animation is a great album as well!
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I think it’s a far stronger record than Terminal Velocity. Tunnel Vision and Animate-Inanimate are incredible.

Ascendingthethrone said:
I am not a big fan of The Astonishing, but I admire them trying something different.
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Agreed, although I wish it stuck the landing instead of, well, you know. Most of their albums since have been decent yet utterly formulaic.

I had a feeling it would be tough to top their self-titled (I know this album gets a mixed reaction from fans but I love it), and while their last thee efforts have had a standout track here or there, the self-titled was so damn consistently strong.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
I think it’s a far stronger record than Terminal Velocity. Tunnel Vision and Animate-Inanimate are incredible.


Agreed, although I wish it stuck the landing instead of, well, you know. Most of their albums since have been decent yet utterly formulaic.

I had a feeling it would be tough to top their self-titled (I know this album gets a mixed reaction from fans but I love it), and while their last thee efforts have had a standout track here or there, the self-titled was so damn consistently strong.
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100%. I love the self titled as well.

Whenever I speak to Dream Theater fans, they always have a soft spot for the first album they waited for the release of. I suppose this is the same for lots of other bands. For me it was Systematic Chaos. I saw them for the first time on this tour. I know it gets a lot of flack, but there is enough variety on the album to keep me interested.
 
Ascendingthethrone said:
100%. I love the self titled as well.

Whenever I speak to Dream Theater fans, they always have a soft spot for the first album they waited for the release of. I suppose this is the same for lots of other bands.
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Which was Train of Thought for me, so I get it. When those first bass harmonics hit in As I Am, I knew I was in for something dark and special.

Ascendingthethrone said:
For me it was Systematic Chaos. I saw them for the first time on this tour. I know it gets a lot of flack, but there is enough variety on the album to keep me interested.
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Systematic Chaos was definitely a departure for the band at the time. Half the tracks were about goofy stuff like comic books, vampires, and pharaoh monsters, while the rest were more serious and tackled things like alcoholism, OCD, wartime economy (I think), and the ultimate sacrifice. It was just after this (with most of BC&SL) that I started to lose interest in the band, with them not really clicking for me again until the self-titled (I gained more appreciation for ADTOE long after its release). But…

MindRuler said:
Systematic Chaos never clicked with me.
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…I understand this, too. A lot of it was out of left field for me, and there’s still a few tracks (the alcoholic one, most of TDEN) that do very little for me. I think ITPOE drags on quite a bit in its second half, too.
 
I started listening to DT when Octavarium came out but these days I feel like SC is more of my favorite album, to be completely honest with you. It's properly heavy but also properly technical.

The Astonishing is one of the worst albums I've ever heard period. It's uncanny how there's ZERO hooks in that album, which is something DT can be pretty good at. Too bored to do a proper ranking, but I feel that we can agree nothing they've ever done will ever reach the heights of IandW and Awake.
 
wizardry said:
The Astonishing is one of the worst albums I've ever heard period. It's uncanny how there's ZERO hooks in that album, which is something DT can be pretty good at.
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The only part of the album I remember is one of Petrucci’s solos that has a cool bass line underneath, and I only remember it because it’s the only point on the album that John Myung is audible.
 
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Detective Beauregard said:
The only part of the album I remember is one of Petrucci’s solos that has a cool bass line underneath, and I only remember it because it’s the only point on the album that John Myung is audible.
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That's the main problem, the album is just a mess. Songwriting wise, etc. Even the art is just shit, and that's quite something to say considering they're a band with extremely ugly album covers. They're clearly part of the CD generation...

And what makes it worse is that it's not a memorable kind of bad. It's also one of their most forgettable records ever, as well. They didn't even bother to bring songs back from it, which says a lot. Clearly playing songs off concept albums out of context has never been a problem to any prog band, but I think they were self aware when it came to it. What puzzles me is that the CD is somewhat expensive for a DT release and a double album, at least where I live.
 
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