Dream Theater - The Astonishing

You can't please everyone - ToT is my *least* favorite DT album by far.

That said - this album is hitting me more like Broadway than Rock - not enough hooks and riffs - as others have said. Still - this is so much to take in. I'm giving it time before I make too many judgments.
 
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I dont understand what people mean by "there are no riffs".
met pt 1, under a glass moon, pull me under, 6:00 (keyboard), Erotomania, New Millennium, Burning My Soul, Peruvian Skies, Strange Deja Vu, Fatal Tragedy, The Great Debate, About To Crash, As I Am, Root of all Evil, These Walls, Constant Motion, Dark Eternal Night (THAT END RIFF OMG)... just to name a few!!

all of these have a main riff or two that you can sing and instantly know the song. do ALL songs need this? no, of course not. if not Riff based, songs are typically chord based, and i feel there've been few riffs lately, and more just long chords.

now there is a sort of riff in "the gift of music." but to me, that's very chord based. so i don't count that as a "riff", just to be clear.

again, this album in particular is a different approach, so it may be a bad example. but i mean compare those classic and strong riffs to some of the other recent albums. it's more of a score, chord-based feel. not a bad thing, but just, not what i think of for DT. i mean, obviously things have changed, so it's probably part of it.
 
again, this album in particular is a different approach, so it may be a bad example. but i mean compare those classic and strong riffs to some of the other recent albums. it's more of a score, chord-based feel. not a bad thing, but just, not what i think of for DT. i mean, obviously things have changed, so it's probably part of it.
This album is far more symphony than rock album to me. Most of the songs have that non-repeating section feel to me. That's one of the things that keep them "prog rock" in my mind.
 
Not digging it, like usual with the last few albums I like a couple of tracks and not much else. One of my favorite all time bands but they just don't have the hooks very often like they used to. Then not again not everyone can re-define an entire genre so still huge respect for them!
 
Unless Mike Mangini spent all the time with the producer in the control room from tracking through the final mix down, there is a possibility that there was some sample replacement done or there was extreme limiting done that gave the same aural effect that many of us are hearing. My critique was not of the fills or the actual patterns or musicianship of your friend, which are neat, but of the drum sounds themselves which sound un-human.

Drummers will always have a 3-5% velocity variation when playing a song and the most disciplined drummers, especially when playing fast, will have a 1/2" or 1" radius variance on hitting the drum in the exact same spot, which slightly varies the sound. You can even look at the drum heads of Neal Peart or Stewart Copeland or Steve Gadd or Danny Carey and see that kind of hit radius variance on their drum heads when they play.

For example, just to illustrate what I am talking about:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/i21J1BUAyBk/hqdefault.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZSiuK4Mt9gs/maxresdefault.jpg
https://200mghercianos.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/copeland-kit-3.jpg
http://dannycarey.org/wp-content/uploads/4.jpg

I have listened to a lot of serious players in the control room in my day and the best drummers will have those kinds of variances in sound, which is nothing to be ashamed about, as that is incredible precision. I am not hearing those slight variances on this album.

I have been on sessions where the producer did sample replacement and/or limiting without a drummer's knowledge and the drummer was none the wiser and the aural effect was similar to what I am hearing on this album. I am not saying this is exactly what happened here, but the drum tracks sound extremely produced, for want of a better term.

I'll ask him for a run down of how it was all strung together and PM you with the details....just for the sake of us both knowing :)
 
Enjoyed a second listen with a fresh perspective - i.e. NOT to expect a 'typical' Dream Theater album
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I had high hopes, The Astonishing is a brilliant piece of music but a long repetitive concept album.

For years I've been more entertained by bands that are heavily influenced by Dream Theater such as Norway's:
Pagans Mind
Circus Maximus
and my latest discovery this band from Mexico, Anima Tempo

Holy shizit these guys are writing some seriously heavy music!
 
Speaking guitars, Petrucci's lead tone is beyond fantastic on this release, IMO. The lead break in A Better Life is alive and got many rewinds when I was doing my first listen (on a professionally tuned studio setup, which was a joy). Whatever thoughts some may be voicing here about how individual instruments sound, I think the overall mix of this album is excellent.
 
Speaking guitars, Petrucci's lead tone is beyond fantastic on this release, IMO. The lead break in A Better Life is alive and got many rewinds when I was doing my first listen (on a professionally tuned studio setup, which was a joy). Whatever thoughts some may be voicing here about how individual instruments sound, I think the overall mix of this album is excellent.
Agreed. Also love the smooth lead tone in A Savior In the Square, and the lead in The Rload to Revolution.
 
Portnoy's absence is readily apparent. He did interesting things on drums, Mangini sounds like a drum machine. Not a fan of his vocals, but at least it broke up things.

The breathy vocals all the time and deluge of keyboards makes this unlistenable for me. I'll take Nightmare To Remember over anything on this. To each his own, if you dig it you dig it. IMHO YMMV.
 
I dont think its as bad as many people are saying. I think unfortunately, with the amount of material it is, its easy to blanket the whole thing as mediocre. They would have done better releasing this as 3 albums over the year IMO.

Octavarium is my favorite album though, which most people seem to hate.
 
Just to respond about the idea of appealing to or making DT music more accessible to non-DT fans... I doubt that at this stage of the game they're going to be picking up a lot of new fans, no matter what they put out. A few weirdos here and there maybe, but this kind of music in general is wrapping up the back nine and that's sad. The kids just don't care like we used to.
 
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