Liquid Tension Experiment LTE3

PumpkinKing86

Experienced
I know there's a bunch of Petrucci fans on here. What do y'all think of the new Liquid Tension Experiment album? After a few spins, I think it may take the place of LTE2 as my favorite album of theirs. My favorite tracks are Hypersonic, Liquid Evolution, and their cover of Rhapsody in Blue. Chris & Kevin's Amazing Odyssey makes me wonder if Tony Levin heard Scott Pingel's tribute to Cliff Burton on S&M2? Good stuff all around.

I'm still waiting on my deluxe edition to come in the mail... I'm really interested to hear the 5.1 mixes on the Blu-ray. Anybody get theirs yet?

The intro track certainly lives up to its name!
 
I sort of feel like I might be drifting away from the long crazy technical instrumentals. I loved the first two albums at the time, but not really connecting with this one. I like bits and pieces, can appreciate the mastery, but I want something different right now.
 
I sort of feel like I might be drifting away from the long crazy technical instrumentals. I loved the first two albums at the time, but not really connecting with this one. I like bits and pieces, can appreciate the mastery, but I want something different right now.
I feel the exact same way. I don't know what it is, but this album doesn't feel like the first two. It may just be the place I'm in musically, it's hard to tell. I will always love LTE, it's full of some of my favorite musicians of all time, and I'll always feel like Dream Theater will never be the same without Mike Portnoy. Somewhat ironically, I feel like Petrucci's latest solo album is my favorite out of his solo stuff.
 
While I truly appreciate and respect the technical prowess it takes to compose and record music like this, it does nothing for me emotionally.
 
I'm still a huge fan of John Petrucci and all his projects :)
I only heard hypersonic, beating the odds and key of imagination? and it was great, as great as I still listen to my LTE1&2 albums since 20 years :D
 
Can understand opinions about it...
But I still love it because I've seen Dream Theater several times live (all with Portnoy) and thats another world so see and hear how this guys are able to perform this stuff live and not only on record. And I got this in my mind when listening to this.
Do not dislike Mangini - he seems to be a very kind person and is indeed a superd drummer - but I still prefer Portnoy and also be more into the DT records with him.
Never seen LTE alive until now, maybe there will be a chance after Covid.
 
I got my Deluxe edition on launch day and really dig the packaging, Ive not had a chance to listen to it as of yet aside from the released songs and Rhapsody but im digging them, Ive been on a big DT kick lately so this will make the rotation quite soon. I saw LTE in NYC in 2008? I think it was and it was a mind blowing show. Despite the craptastic year we had last year getting a new JP solo, LTE, And we should be hearing new DT later this year kinda makes it kinda worth it lol.

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I get being worn out on their music. My interest ebbs and flows too, but LTE3 caught me on an upswing.

Would love to see these guys live again. My dream is they do some sort of King Crimson "double trio" lineup with both Mikes on drums, get Sherinian as a second keyboardist, have Myung and Levin on bass...
 
That's the thing, its very "musicians music" or definitely "guitarists" music.....its totally impressive, technically, the production, everything about it - its just too good.....but that's often the case when you have a lot of talent thrown into one small place

sounds good though, actually, very early dream theater rifffage if you can hear it
 
Alright, enough of the haters' unneeded two cents. Much like Virginia, this thread is for lovers. 😘

I finally got my deluxe edition yesterday! I threw on the Blu-ray and listened to the interview and then I put on the 5.1 mix with the visualizer. I think it should go without saying, but the LPCM mixes sound infinitely better than the streaming versions I've been listening to for the past week or so. The animation they have for Rhapsody in Blue is really cool. I hope they put it on YouTube or something for everybody else to see.

I feel just as excited and inspired by this album as I was for LTE2 and Scenes from a Memory when I was a freshman in high school!
 
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I didn't get to experience it for the first time as I had hoped (headphones and some medicinal herbs) but I'm listening to it now in my studio and just hearing Petrucci's guitars with Portnoy's drums is making me feel 16 again. I'm only a few songs in but there are definitely some LTE1 moments on here that I love.

Rudess has been fairly restrained so far and I'm just praying there's no ragtime section on this album. As amazing as Rudess is, he's my least favorite keyboard player in DT. Love a lot of his sounds, it's just his actual playing sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. Not as moody as Moore and not as vibey as Sherinian.

"Chris And Kevin's Amazing Odyssey" just started, I've been looking forward to this since I saw it on the track listing because I whistle the first one ALL the time and have for 20 years. I love the drum groove in it....so hoping they bring something similar with this one. Levin's tones are awesome on this so far and I'm loving the stuff in this right now with the panned, distorted bass.

Edit- DAMNIT, he couldn't help himself. There HAD to be a fucking ragtime section in this. Who actually enjoys it when he breaks into this crap? It's been done over and over and over. Man, that just pulled me right out of the enjoyable experience I was having. I wonder if he has like 40 ideas shot down and then waits until the guys start feeling bad for shooting down his ideas and they just give him the ragtime section. (I'm be facetious, but still). It's towards the end of "Rhapsody In Blue".

I'd love to know what has consistently led to a goddamn ragtime section being on nearly every album Rudess has been on for over 20 years now. It was clever/funny the first time. Only that one time, yet it's made it's way into so many damn albums now, he even tried to ruin "A Change Of Seasons" during the LSFNY (I was at that show!) performance with it. It's just so damn jarring, especially when there's a good groove going on.
 
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I didn't get to experience it for the first time as I had hoped (headphones and some medicinal herbs) but I'm listening to it now in my studio and just hearing Petrucci's guitars with Portnoy's drums is making me feel 16 again. I'm only a few songs in but there are definitely some LTE1 moments on here that I love.

Rudess has been fairly restrained so far and I'm just praying there's no ragtime section on this album. As amazing as Rudess is, he's my least favorite keyboard player in DT. Love a lot of his sounds, it's just his actual playing sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. Not as moody as Moore and not as vibey as Sherinian.

"Chris And Kevin's Amazing Odyssey" just started, I've been looking forward to this since I saw it on the track listing because I whistle the first one ALL the time and have for 20 years. I love the drum groove in it....so hoping they bring something similar with this one. Levin's tones are awesome on this so far and I'm loving the stuff in this right now with the panned, distorted bass.

Edit- DAMNIT, he couldn't help himself. There HAD to be a fucking ragtime section in this. Who actually enjoys it when he breaks into this crap? It's been done over and over and over. Man, that just pulled me right out of the enjoyable experience I was having. I wonder if he has like 40 ideas shot down and then waits until the guys start feeling bad for shooting down his ideas and they just give him the ragtime section. (I'm be facetious, but still). It's towards the end of "Rhapsody In Blue".

I'd love to know what has consistently led to a goddamn ragtime section being on nearly every album Rudess has been on for over 20 years now. It was clever/funny the first time. Only that one time, yet it's made it's way into so many damn albums now, he even tried to ruin "A Change Of Seasons" during the LSFNY (I was at that show!) performance with it. It's just so damn jarring, especially when there's a good groove going on.
Rudess is amazing on a technical level, but something clicked for me when I realized all my favorite keyboard parts were pre-Rudess. Still plenty of stuff that he writes that I dig but nothing as good, in my opinion, as the keyboard part from Lines in the Sand for instance
 
Gave this a listen when it was still a pre release. REALLY loved to see these guys working again. Dug the sounds and really respect the writing.

I was really hoping this was going to be different. There was nothing on this I felt I needed to hear again.
 
Rudess is amazing on a technical level, but something clicked for me when I realized all my favorite keyboard parts were pre-Rudess. Still plenty of stuff that he writes that I dig but nothing as good, in my opinion, as the keyboard part from Lines in the Sand for instance

Moore had all the awesome moody stuff, especially on Awake. Sherinian had my favorite sounds with all the Triton stuff on Falling Into Infinity. A few months back, Sherinian was offering to play on anyone’s music as long as they were willing to pay. I sent him one of my songs, he played for about 30 seconds on it. I told him which sounds of his I loved the most and he used them....I was shitting my pants when I heard it; Derek Sherinian playing my favorite keyboard sounds on one of MY songs!

Unfortunately, I don’t have $1K to drop for 10 minutes of Derek improvising over it. I‘ll post the clip up later, still fun to listen to!
 
I feel just as excited and inspired by this album as I was for LTE2 and Scenes from a Memory when I was a freshman in high school!
Remain the only albums (along with six degrees and falling into inf) i can still listen to from petrucci, even though i've heard them a million times before.

I was curious for lte3, but this music doesn t vibe with me anymore. Although very impressive technically, of course.
 
Moore had all the awesome moody stuff, especially on Awake. Sherinian had my favorite sounds with all the Triton stuff on Falling Into Infinity. A few months back, Sherinian was offering to play on anyone’s music as long as they were willing to pay. I sent him one of my songs, he played for about 30 seconds on it. I told him which sounds of his I loved the most and he used them....I was shitting my pants when I heard it; Derek Sherinian playing my favorite keyboard sounds on one of MY songs!

Unfortunately, I don’t have $1K to drop for 10 minutes of Derek improvising over it. I‘ll post the clip up later, still fun to listen to!
He wants 1k a song? Is that steep or the going rate in his pedigree?
 
He wants 1k a song? Is that steep or the going rate in his pedigree?

Right around there. Clint Lowery from Sevendust, about 5-6 years ago was offering his services for co-writing/production work and I think it was $1250 per song. Not sure how they work out any songwriting credits or if those are even involved. I think it’s a fair price, I mean, if you can have one of your bigger influences work on music with you to some capacity, that’s worth the price of admission alone for some.

Clint is actually doing some Zoom production/writing lessons again via patreon, I might jump on that for a while. He’s one of my favorite songwriters, by a mile.
 
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