Does anyone like the AA saga in its entirety?

[Bertielee]

No. Much too exhausting for me.

B.Lee

[Dreamer81]

the first three songs are awesome, repentance and TSF are awful, so no...too boring for me.

[wasteland]

Meh, not so much. I have a slight issue with The Glass Prison and a bigger one for This Dying Soul. The three remaining songs are OK, though, and I would like to hear them joined together 

[?]

TGP and Root are excellent, TDS is ok but includes rapping and the wanky outro, Repentance gets boring when the apologies start and TSF is ok but sounds too much like a medley.

[Ruba]

Yup.

Prologue:
The Mirror - Awesome

The saga:
The Glass Prison - Great
This Dying Soul - Very good
The Root of All Evil - Great
Repentance - Flawless
The Shattered Fortress - Very good

[Buddyhunter1]

I've listened to it in its entirety once or twice, pretty enjoyable hour from what I can remember.

Best to worst:
The Glass Prison
This Dying Soul
The Root Of All Evil
The Shattered Fortress
Repentance

[El JoNNo]

I love seeing the opinions. Keep em coming.

[Cruithne]

The Mirror - Great song.

--------------------------------------

The Glass Prison - The bookends of the song are superb, but I've always felt the middle section drags.
This Dying Soul - I love the start of it, but it tails off after that. Good overall.
The Root of All Evil - Very good.
Repentance - Very good up until the apology section, which got old and annoying very quickly. The pitch-shifted narration vocals afterwards are risible.
The Shattered Fortress - A bit of a mess... plus a good example of Portnoy detracting from the quality of a song with his attempts to sound "heavy".

So no, I don't like it in its entirety. It was going well until Repentance though.

[hefdaddy42]

I think one of the problems with the AA suite is that only one song is under 10 minutes, right?

I mean the songs TGP, TDS and TSF are filled with so many almost pointless and unrelated solo and instrumental sections that the suite as a whole just becomes a major chore.

The only songs that seem truly focused are TRoAE and Repentance, the rest are just kind of typical DT metal songs without any point musically.

This, even though I like all of it as I posted earlier.  It isn't as apparent a problem when listening to the individual songs on their own, but strung together, the extra stuff really stands out. 

[GasparXR]

The Mirror - Probably my favourite song on Awake. Really amazing piece of work.

The Glass Prison - a truly relentess ball of fire, as describe by MP. really great technical prowess here, but still great to listen to.
This Dying Soul - tied with TSF as my least favourite of the suite, but works great in the context of the AA suite. playing it live would be great because the final few notes of TGP lead directly into TDS which have the same notes at the beginning, albeit a little faster
The Root of All Evil - a cool rocking song, definitely toned down from the first two. carrying on the tradition, the beginning repeats a motif from the previous song (the drumbeat), but that pattern stopped with the next song
Repentance - one of my all-time DT favourites. works great in context too because the first theme is from TDS and even has the lyric repeated. also carries the key signature into the beginning of TSF
The Shattered Fortress - honestly, not great to listen to on its own or as a part of the album, but with the AA suite it works wonderfully. hearing the TROAE chorus gives me chills like hearing the line "safe in the light that surrounds me" from TSCO, because it harkens all the way back to Regression, its the same sort of thing.

As a whole - I don't listen to it all that often, only when I'm in the mood. Definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

[ZirconBlue]

the AAA suite

I think MP prefers to call it the Roadside Assistance Saga.

[Madman Shepherd]

It all could have worked had he known when to stop. Had he done 3 songs, and maybe even left some of the last steps uncovered (which would have been an insightful message to push) it would have been a marvelous trilogy.
Another thing that killed it for me were those insincere apologies in Repentance. I guess understandable that none of those guys wanted to spill a dark secret of theirs on some dude's album, but it kinda emphasized the farce the whole thing had become.

Yeah, that was really an odd thing to do and for him to not offer up any apologies of his own.  it made it less personal.  I still love the song though. 

[GasparXR]

I just made a cool compilation of the songs in Audacity. It starts with The Mirror, with the reprise at the end of Lie. Then TGP plays, but the final chord is replaced with the first chord of TDS (which of course cuts out the first few notes). Immediately after the last chord fades out, the piano note at the beginning of TROAE plays. The ending is cut slightly to not include the "intro" of The Answer Lies Within, and a second or two before the final note fades out entirely, Repentance begins. At the end, I put the fade-in of TSF a bit after the final chord. I originally had it start immediately, but the final words of Repentance get too buried behind TSF. Now it's audible.

[BlobVanDam]

Spoiler alert - The Mirror is not connected to the 12SS.

[Lolzeez]

The Glass Prison - Love it
This Dying Soul - Love it
The Root of All Evil - It's ok
Repentance - Love it
The Shattered Fortress - Meh

[Perpetual Change]

The Glass Prison - Love it
This Dying Soul - meh
The Root of All Evil - It's ok
Repentance - terrible
The Shattered Fortress - it's ok

the 12SS as a whole- the whole is even less than the sum of its parts

[GasparXR]

Spoiler alert - The Mirror is not connected to the 12SS.

Sarcasm?

[BlobVanDam]

Spoiler alert - The Mirror is not connected to the 12SS.

Sarcasm?

What could possibly be sarcastic about that? The Mirror is not part of the 12SS in any way. It's just sort of about the same subject lyrically.

[Bertielee]

Spoiler alert - The Mirror is not connected to the 12SS.

Sarcasm?

What could possibly be sarcastic about that? The Mirror is not part of the 12SS in any way. It's just sort of about the same subject lyrically.

Yeah, Blob is right. Even MP told it. No connection between the Mirror and The 12SS.

B.Lee

[bosk1]

^Correct.  Although it is somewhat confusing given that Mike incorporated lyrical references to The Mirror in at least two songs in the 12SS, so I can see why people view it as part of the suite.  It is sort of unofficially related in that regard.

[Ultimetalhead]

DT's great failed experiment, I call it.  I agree with MP in that it probably should have just been one song with all 12 steps.

Where did he say that? I always got the impression that he was rather fond of it. I mean, they worked on it for 8 years, and it's finished, so you'd have to like it at least a little bit.

As a whole, it's definitely incredibly bloated, but the songs on their own are great (with the exception of Repentance which is about 6 minutes longer than it needs to be).

[The Letter M]

DT's great failed experiment, I call it.  I agree with MP in that it probably should have just been one song with all 12 steps.

Where did he say that? I always got the impression that he was rather fond of it. I mean, they worked on it for 8 years, and it's finished, so you'd have to like it at least a little bit.

As a whole, it's definitely incredibly bloated, but the songs on their own are great (with the exception of Repentance which is about 6 minutes longer than it needs to be).

EDIT - found it on the Wiki article on the suite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_Suite

Upon finishing the Suite in 2009, he reflected that he had "dug [himself] into a hole with it. It was a nice idea seven years ago... After a while it became like an obligation hanging over my head, like a homework assignment."[5] He said that he "didn't know if [he] would have done it"[6] if he knew how big the Suite was going to be: "If I had realized what I was getting myself into five albums ago... I think maybe I would have written one song that encompassed all twelve steps."[6]

-Marc.

[Ultimetalhead]

Interesting. It follows the concept of a lot of great works over a period of time. The first one is amazing because of the level of inspiration required to undertake such a task, but it becomes tiresome and uninspired towards the end.

[bosk1]

^I don't disagree with that.  But still, as it is, it's still really cool.  It could have been a better overall pieace of music if it were more concise.  Yes, in retrospect, if TDS, Repentence, and TSF were more concise and focused, the whole thing could have been better.  But still, the concept and execution of this over 5 albums is still a really amazing feat.  Few bands have even attempting anything remotely like this.  I think we tend to lose sight of that when we choose to instead focus on nitpicking the specific things we may not like about the suite.

[hefdaddy42]

Spoiler alert - The Mirror is not connected to the 12SS.

Sarcasm?

No.  It's not part of the suite.  At all.

[Nel]

TGP and Root are excellent, TDS is ok but includes rapping and the wanky outro, Repentance gets boring when the apologies start and TSF is ok but sounds too much like a medley.

Pretty much my opinion exactly.

[Cool Chris]

TGP and Root are excellent, TDS is ok but includes rapping and the wanky outro, Repentance gets boring when the apologies start and TSF is ok but sounds too much like a medley.

Pretty much my opinion exactly.

That was a pretty solid one sentence summary. I made an MP3 with all songs merged, then realized I would never actually listen to it all the way through. So glad that it isn’t on the forecast for any upcoming live sets.

[yorost]

The Glass Prison - Good, weakest song on great disc
This Dying Soul - Good, weakest song on great album
The Root of All Evil - Bad song on a bad album
Repentance - Sometimes ok, sometimes too boring, one of the weaker songs on a weak album
The Shattered Fortress - Bad, weakest song on weak album

I really got sick of the AA suite, they really just started feeling out of place on their albums.  The final three songs all hurt their albums' flows.  I'm so happy the band is past this.

[Algo Fonix]

The only song of the bunch I don't absolutely love is The Shattered Fortress. It's not a bad song, but I think it pales in comparison to the ones before it.

[TheGreatPretender]

If I had to choose, I would say the weakest song out of the whole saga is The Root Of All Evil. I think the main riff is one of the best riffs that JP ever wrote, but beyond that and a couple of cool vocal passages, it doesn't really offer a whole lot, I find. I still love it, but to me, like I said, that main riff aside, it was the least memorable of the entire suite.

[DebraKadabra]

The only song of the bunch I don't absolutely love is The Shattered Fortress. It's not a bad song, but I think it pales in comparison to the ones before it.

Agreed.

[kirksnosehair]

I love the concept of it overall.  I think it was a really cool idea.  The execution of that concept lacks in a few places, but not enough for me to not enjoy the whole thing.


If I were to rate it as a whole I'd give it 3.5 / 5 stars

[VioletS16]

DT's great failed experiment, I call it.  I agree with MP in that it probably should have just been one song with all 12 steps.

As it stands, I found the saga grew worse with each successive song.  TGP is a favorite of mine, and TDS and TROAE are great too.  Repentance is fine but could have used some trimming; TSF is an utter mess.

[Dellers]

The Glass Prison - strongly dislike it. 4th least favorite DT song after Raw Dog, Burning My Soul and Constant Motion.
This Dying Soul - dig it. Probably the first DT song I heard a few times in a relatively short amount of time.
The Root of All Evil - dig it.
Repentance - pretty boring. I'm not a fan of ballads in general unless they have a really strong melody.
The Shattered Fortress - a cool tune. Nothing special, but I'll listen to it every once in a while.

[GasparXR]

Spoiler alert - The Mirror is not connected to the 12SS.

Sarcasm?

No.  It's not part of the suite.  At all.

Yes, but he said it's not connected to the suite at all, which is not true. TDS and Repentance do contain references to the song, which you can't say isn't a form of connection.