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Dream Theater => Dream Theater => Topic started by: npiazza91 on December 30, 2017, 09:57:28 PM
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Some bands like Metallica have such an extremely high period, but some extremely low lows as well. Not many people would say that they are consistent, whether you prefer their early stuff or their newer stuff.
Would you say DT is a consistent band overall?
I would say yes. Sure, they've had their ups and downs, but nothing has been too dramatic. Even when they have a weak album, they usually come back with something amazing.
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I tend to agree. Some albums are meh, but even those have good moments. DT has more great material than bad material in my book, for sure.
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I absolutely agree. DT never did a Risk or a St. Anger, even their most divisive albums are full of standout tracks and are, at worst, just a less successful approach to what they've always done. Even The Astonishing is clearly full of DT trademarks, it's not that they sacrificed they entire style for the album, they just focused it and narrowed it more towards the goal of the record but if you scatter the Astonishing songs all over their discography, they would not be that out of place.
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Really good question : my answer would be yes. Granted, some of their albums don't appeal to me, but it's just a matter of taste. For me, at least, they've never released a bad album.
B.Lee
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DT never did a Risk or a Lulu
FTFY
I absolutely agree though. I have never heard a bad album by DT, not even a bad song. There are only albums by the band I like better than others.
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I'd say they are consistent. Some of the work won't click with me but on the whole they are pretty consistent.
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For me they were consistent up until and including Octavarium. It took a long time for some of the songs in that timeframe to click, but I can comfortably say that there is not a bad song from WDADU to 8VM. After that things get wonky, and more and more songs just don't appeal to me.
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They have yet to release a bad album, and even their least good albums still have tons of enjoyable stuff on them. I'd say their consistency is actually pretty impressive considering they're 13 albums and 30+ years in. And their last album was probably their most inspired work yet.
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Yeah, I would say that DT has managed a pretty consistent high quality over the past 13 albums. The only real "lulls" for me or only an album or two and it's not like Yes where they have a long string of so-so or mediocre albums. Even their weaker albums (SC, BC&SL, DT12, and (imo) Awake) still are fairly good and have some great songs on them. The only album I'd actually say is mediocre per-se is WDADU, and it's the odd-man-out in their oeuvre.
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yeh
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Definitely!
The only low points in their catalog for me, after WDADU (not counting it, since they were just starting), are FII and BC&SL, and I still think those are very good compared to other band's albums in the genere, just not as good for the DT standard.
The other DT album that I don't like that much either is Octavarium. It has some amazing songs in it, but others just don't click with me, because they don't sound too much like DT (NE and IWBY, for example).
Other than that, they've been very consistent for more than 30 years, bands like that are very hard to find. Can't wait for DT14 already.
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How is WDADU a low point? That's a damn fine album made by a bunch of kids a long time ago.
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How is WDADU a low point? That's a damn fine album made by a bunch of kids a long time ago.
But definitely not one of their best albums :biggrin:
I mean, it's a very strong debut, but compare it to the rest of their catalog... the others are much better (again, in my opinion).
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One of the first things I noticed about the band was the consistency of their albums. Even WDADU sounded like DT, some bands early work sounds unrecognizable when compared to their later work. Just look at Rush, who have dabbled in everything from prog to hard rock to synth pop and even grunge with their album "Counterparts".
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Yes.
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Yes. Consistently awesome!
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Overall, I would agree, yes. I definitely like some albums more than others (we all have our favorites) but I can't say there are any that I flat out hate for any reason. I look at it this way: DT's "worst" (figuratively speaking) are better than a lot of other band's "best" ones.
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There only have two albums that made Herrick go WTF? but even those albums are listenable. So yes I think they are the most consistent as far as not drastically changing styles from album to album.
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Black Clouds was the only album where I went "Uh oh" I hope this isn't the beginning of the end but the last three albums have proved me very wrong. Even Black Clouds had the Count of Tuscanny, which is amazing! Also Wither has grown tremendously on me.
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I absolutely agree. DT never did a Risk or a St. Anger, even their most divisive albums are full of standout tracks and are, at worst, just a less successful approach to what they've always done. Even The Astonishing is clearly full of DT trademarks, it's not that they sacrificed they entire style for the album, they just focused it and narrowed it more towards the goal of the record but if you scatter the Astonishing songs all over their discography, they would not be that out of place.
This pretty much sums it up for me.
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I'd say very consistent. Some albums have different sounds and ideas, but at the core, they all sound like DT albums to me. Maybe WDADU is the least consistent when compared to the rest, but that's a debut album with poor production and a different style singer. I'd say musically it is still consistent even though that one sounds the most different out of the bunch.
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Black Clouds was the only album where I went "Uh oh" I hope this isn't the beginning of the end but the last three albums have proved me very wrong. Even Black Clouds had the Count of Tuscanny, which is amazing! Also Wither has grown tremendously on me.
Yeah, agree on Black Clouds. TCOT is the only silver lining (pun intended) on that album. I used to like the other songs a lot more, but last time I gave the whole album a listen (around 1 or 2 weeks ago) they didn't sound too good to me.
- ANTR has great moments, like the beautiful agony chorus, but it drags after the instrumental break.
- AROP is a very weird song, the only things I like about it are the bass intro and the guita solo.
- Wither is ok but pretty uneventful. I compare it to other ballads like TSCO or TBP and the difference is huge.
- TSF is very good, but it relies way too much on the previous songs of the suite to stand on its own.
- TBOT has THAT guitar solo and the intro is really cool, but the rest of the song does nothing for me. It feels like they made it longer -
and longer just to fit more lyrics about MP's father and the song loses its momentum imo.
- TCOT still feels as good as always :hefdaddy
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Yes
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I would say that they are pretty consistent. The SC/BCSL era had me worried, but they've bounced back pretty well.
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I would say that they are pretty consistent. The SC/BCSL era had me worried, but they've bounced back pretty well.
I feel the same way about Black Clouds, but I think SC is very good, don't know why so many people don't like it so much.
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I would say that they are pretty consistent. The SC/BCSL era had me worried, but they've bounced back pretty well.
I feel the same way about Black Clouds, but I think SC is very good, don't know why so many people don't like it so much.
So-so lyrics, copy and paste effect in too many songs, and trying too hard to be modern metal or whatever. It's not that I think it sucks or that I loathe it, I can live with it just fine, but since the rest of their discography is so strong, these details are enough to bring down the album a bit for me.
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The SC/BCSL era had me worried, but they've bounced back pretty well.
That's actually how I felt about the ADTOE and DT12 era. A massive downgrade from the previous albums, I thought they would never bounce back, but they did :)
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I've always thought "forevermore...into the night...blistering" was easily one of the dumbest lines I had ever heard. The Answer Lies Within is Shakespeare by comparison (and that sounds like non-stop regurgitated quotes from "Chicken Soup for the Soul"). Prophets, Constant Motion, and Repentance are my bottom three all time DT tracks. Basically, I just think SC blows.
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So-so lyrics, copy and paste effect in too many songs, and trying too hard to be modern metal or whatever. It's not that I think it sucks or that I loathe it, I can live with it just fine, but since the rest of their discography is so strong, these details are enough to bring down the album a bit for me.
I've always thought "forevermore...into the night...blistering" was easily one of the dumbest lines I had ever heard. The Answer Lies Within is Shakespeare by comparison (and that sounds like non-stop regurgitated quotes from "Chicken Soup for the Soul"). Prophets, Constant Motion, and Repentance are my bottom three all time DT tracks. Basically, I just think SC blows.
All fair points. Yes, SC is, by far, not one of their best, but I think it's a fun album and it's very consistent as a whole. My problem with, for example, Octavarium is that some songs are great, but the others feel like they don't really fit in the album, like IWBY, TALW and NE. The songs in SC, in contrast, work well with each other and form a nice collection of tracks that, while dynamic enough to have heavy and melodic moments throughout, still falls under a similar style.
TLDR: While the songs are not their best, I like how SC feels consistent as a whole.
I consider BC&SL a big mess, though. Glad they went another direction for ADTOE, DT12 and TA.
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Can't think of a more consistent band (with their amount of albums) off the top of my head. Sure, I like some albums more than others but I don't consider any of their albums to be bad albums. Even Iron Maiden (also very consistent) had albums like No Prayer For The Dying and Virtual XI which I consider to be pretty awful records. Octavarium would be my least favourite DT album but it is not a bad album and there's plenty on here who consider it to be DT's best.