Poll

First thoughts?

Instant classic
184 (27.1%)
Very strong
314 (46.3%)
Decent
98 (14.5%)
Meh
41 (6%)
Disappointing
41 (6%)

Total Members Voted: 647

Author Topic: What are your thoughts on DT12?  (Read 153583 times)

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Offline TheGreatPretender

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1295 on: September 04, 2014, 07:01:01 PM »
I feel like they've stopped being a "progressive" band, and have settled into a very predictable format.
The whole concept of progressive music is very flawed, because it can describe so many things, that nobody's going to agree on what's the one specific quality that defines progressive music.
Besides the typical instruments, atmosphere, virtuosity, lengthy and complex songs, progressive music, to me, means that there is progression within a song, it starts out a certain way, then evolves, changes its tone, tempo, time signature, takes you on a journey. That puts the progression in progressive music, not changing the sound every single album, that would be just silly.

See? For me personally, that's exactly the one defining characteristic of how I identified Progressive music. If I listen to a song and it starts one way and then builds and changes, and has different themes, and grows into something that's totally different, maybe with hints of the original, that's how I identified progressive music. Or at least switches between different themes throughout. Like, by that definition, songs like Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and even Master of Puppets, are progressive songs, and personally, I'd say they are.

Then I started talking to people, and everyone has their own idea of what "Progressive" means. "The band is progressive, so they always need to experiment and do something that no one has done before, and change their sound to something completely new and different. And if they don't do that, they're not making progressive music anymore, because they're not making the genre progress in a new direction."  ::)
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Offline ThatOneGuy2112

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1296 on: September 04, 2014, 07:20:42 PM »
I feel like they've stopped being a "progressive" band, and have settled into a very predictable format.
The whole concept of progressive music is very flawed, because it can describe so many things, that nobody's going to agree on what's the one specific quality that defines progressive music.
Besides the typical instruments, atmosphere, virtuosity, lengthy and complex songs, progressive music, to me, means that there is progression within a song, it starts out a certain way, then evolves, changes its tone, tempo, time signature, takes you on a journey. That puts the progression in progressive music, not changing the sound every single album, that would be just silly.

See? For me personally, that's exactly the one defining characteristic of how I identified Progressive music. If I listen to a song and it starts one way and then builds and changes, and has different themes, and grows into something that's totally different, maybe with hints of the original, that's how I identified progressive music. Or at least switches between different themes throughout. Like, by that definition, songs like Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and even Master of Puppets, are progressive songs, and personally, I'd say they are.

Then I started talking to people, and everyone has their own idea of what "Progressive" means. "The band is progressive, so they always need to experiment and do something that no one has done before, and change their sound to something completely new and different. And if they don't do that, they're not making progressive music anymore, because they're not making the genre progress in a new direction."  ::)

Exactly. That's the demerit the genre faces having a word like "progressive" in front of it that can be interpreted several of ways, few of which are actually accurate to the general sound.

Offline Mosh

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1297 on: September 04, 2014, 08:10:04 PM »
Well progressive rock wasn't really a term that described the sound anyway. The early bands had very little in common and had their own distinct sound. Since then, the genre has become a little bit more defined and there are a lot of sound alike bands and in general, most prog groups have a ton of common traits. But that's what happens in any music genre, really. You get a few pioneers to carve out a sound and then a ton follow. Nothing wrong with that and at the end of the day, even the least "progressive" prog is still a pretty big departure from mainstream music.

Dream Theater is one of those bands though that totally came in with their own sound. I&W truly was the first of its kind. And for awhile they were reinventing themselves with every album, so I think it's a valid complaint when someone feels that they aren't doing that. However, I still think they do reinvent themselves to at least some extent every time. No other DT album sounds like DT12.
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Offline TheGreatPretender

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1298 on: September 04, 2014, 08:29:57 PM »
Well progressive rock wasn't really a term that described the sound anyway. The early bands had very little in common and had their own distinct sound. Since then, the genre has become a little bit more defined and there are a lot of sound alike bands and in general, most prog groups have a ton of common traits. But that's what happens in any music genre, really. You get a few pioneers to carve out a sound and then a ton follow. Nothing wrong with that and at the end of the day, even the least "progressive" prog is still a pretty big departure from mainstream music.

Dream Theater is one of those bands though that totally came in with their own sound. I&W truly was the first of its kind. And for awhile they were reinventing themselves with every album, so I think it's a valid complaint when someone feels that they aren't doing that. However, I still think they do reinvent themselves to at least some extent every time. No other DT album sounds like DT12.

Here's the thing though, the fact that DT did come out with their own very unique sound, that's not what defined their music as "Progressive", it's what they did with it, the structures, and the directions they took the music. Because let's face it, there have been a ton of bands that pioneered new genres, like Metallica (Thrash), Alice In Chains (Grunge), etc, but just because those albums started something new and unique, didn't make them "Progressive" albums. But that's how some people define the genre. Whenever someone creates some new and unique sound, they consider that being "Progressive". And in a certain context it is, but that doesn't define the genre.
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Offline Mosh

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1299 on: September 04, 2014, 09:29:51 PM »
Well yea, that's my point. I don't think the expectation for DT to change their sound every album is because they're a prog band, but because they did change their sound every album (and arguably still do). Take Symphony X, for example. Progressive metal band that had the same style for much of their career. Nobody ever insisted that they should change their sound, because they never did and they had a consistent string of albums that stuck to a similar formula. And in fact, they ended up getting criticized when they did change their sound.


It has nothing to do with being progressive, it's more about the expectations the band has made by making albums a certain way.
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Offline tiagodon

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1300 on: September 05, 2014, 12:27:51 PM »
Even Guns N' Roses has progressive material: Coma and Estranged!!  :hat

Offline darkshade

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1301 on: September 07, 2014, 01:48:30 PM »
Listening to DT12 for the first time in almost a year, after listening a handful of times after it came out. The album is the first DT album that didn't hit me much on first listen, and hasn't gotten better for me since.

I enjoy the opening 2 tracks, and then it's up and down until IT. There's moments that raise my eyebrows, but none of the songs really do anything for me as a whole. IT is great (am I the only one who hears Haken influences in this piece, early on?) but not their best epic. It's on par with In The Presence of Enemies, which is still great.

Maybe it will still grow on me, FII keeps getting better and better for me, I listened to it yesterday and it was the most enjoyable listen of that album I've ever had. Maybe in 5 years I'll truly enjoy DT12.

Offline Lucidity

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1302 on: September 11, 2014, 01:28:17 PM »
I still think Illumination Theory is a particularly average song in the DT catalogue... nothing very special about it at all, save for the orchestral section.

Offline red barchetta

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1303 on: September 11, 2014, 08:04:22 PM »
I think that it is just an average album.  Less creativity and harmonies as DT have given us in the past.  To me it could be among one of their 3 worst album and believe me, I have really tried to like it a lot.
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Offline jammindude

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1304 on: September 12, 2014, 05:19:50 AM »
Well progressive rock wasn't really a term that described the sound anyway. The early bands had very little in common and had their own distinct sound. Since then, the genre has become a little bit more defined and there are a lot of sound alike bands and in general, most prog groups have a ton of common traits. But that's what happens in any music genre, really. You get a few pioneers to carve out a sound and then a ton follow. Nothing wrong with that and at the end of the day, even the least "progressive" prog is still a pretty big departure from mainstream music.

Dream Theater is one of those bands though that totally came in with their own sound. I&W truly was the first of its kind. And for awhile they were reinventing themselves with every album, so I think it's a valid complaint when someone feels that they aren't doing that. However, I still think they do reinvent themselves to at least some extent every time. No other DT album sounds like DT12.

Do people really think this?

The first time I heard IAW in 1992, my very first thought was "This is the most blatant Fates Warning ripoff I've ever heard in my life!"...after a second listen, I decided it was a pretty damn good ripoff, and after my third listen I decided it was even better than Fates.   But to this day, I don't hear much of a difference stylistically between IAW and Perfect Symmetry/Parallels-era Fates Warning.
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Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1305 on: September 12, 2014, 06:30:54 AM »
DT and FW were definitely the innovators for prog metal.  FW came first, but DT perfected it.
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Offline rumborak

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1306 on: September 12, 2014, 07:54:08 AM »
Yeah, I had been meaning to reply to that post, but then forgot.
Indeed, if you want to credit a band with the creation of the prog metal genre, it would be FW.  They just couldn't "back up" their initial thrust with the necessary virtuosity and songwriting.

That said, I never felt prog metal as a genre was something that required a lot of "creative juices" to come up with. Prog rock had been around for a long time, and so had metal. It was just a question of time that somebody who both liked Yes and Metallica would start a band.
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Offline Zook

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1307 on: September 12, 2014, 11:02:54 AM »
Fates Warning were Queensryche wannabes anyway.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1308 on: September 12, 2014, 11:33:27 AM »
Fates Warning were Queensryche wannabes anyway.
I strongly disagree.
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Offline Zook

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1309 on: September 12, 2014, 01:20:22 PM »
Fates Warning were Queensryche wannabes anyway.
I strongly disagree.

What else is new?

Offline ?

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1310 on: September 12, 2014, 03:15:36 PM »
Fates Warning were Queensryche wannabes anyway.
I strongly disagree.
Me too. QR were always more accessible, although Fates released Parallels and Inside Out, which may be compared to Empire because of the more straightforward songwriting.

Offline Mosh

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1311 on: September 12, 2014, 06:32:11 PM »
I hear Fates Warning in the debut but definitely not Images and Words. Not even a little. Sorry.
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Offline Herrick

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1312 on: September 15, 2014, 06:24:48 PM »
I'd say it's good rather than decent.
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Offline wolfking

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1313 on: September 15, 2014, 08:00:20 PM »
Fates Warning were Queensryche wannabes anyway.

Fuck no.  People underestimate how important Fates Warning are to the progressive metal genre.
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Offline jammindude

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1314 on: September 15, 2014, 09:41:04 PM »
I was re-listening to DT yesterday.   It's aging really well for me.    I still consider it a upper-mid tier album.   Certainly their best since 8V by a long shot.   (but since 8V is my #1, I'm biased)
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Offline PixelDream

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1315 on: September 18, 2014, 04:00:20 AM »
I revisited the album yesterday (HDtracks version) and I have to say: I like 'The Enemy Inside' and the easter egg part after 'Illumination Theory'. That's about it. Nothing I can do about it.
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Offline nikatapi

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1316 on: September 18, 2014, 10:22:34 AM »
I did the mistake of playing The Enemy Inside after listening to Caught In A Web. How the hell can an album that was released 20 years ago sound so much better than the most recent one?

It's really unbelievable, especially if you are listening with headphones.

Offline tiagodon

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1317 on: September 18, 2014, 03:58:41 PM »
I did the mistake of playing The Enemy Inside after listening to Caught In A Web. How the hell can an album that was released 20 years ago sound so much better than the most recent one?

It's really unbelievable, especially if you are listening with headphones.

Ain't that a bitch?!

Metallica's Black Album sounds so superior compared to the ones that came after.
Ozzy's No More Tears and Ozzmosis are so superior than the ones that followed.
etc etc

Producer? Label equipament?


Offline adamack

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1318 on: September 19, 2014, 02:28:17 PM »
[quote author=Enigmachine link=topic=38986.msg1856760#msg1856760 date=1409761231

However I still think this is a great album, and a step in the right direction considering the more consise song lengths, improved (if still cheesy) lyrics and a more song-oriented approach. Additionally, there is some thing I've noticed with some DT albums: they work on some complaints of the previous album and sometimes overdo it.

-'ADTOE' complaints were mainly (I'm talking in general, not just here) that it had too many ballads, weak sound and merely good drumming.
-This album turned out to have more heaviness, an overwhelming sound and Mangini "unleashed".

[/quote]

I'm curious to know why many people claim that ADToE sounded weak, with too many ballads.

I personally think that the album is very heavy.

OTBoA, BMUBMD, LNF, BITS, and Outcry all have main parts with very heavy riffs, and tons of energy throughout.

BAI has the breakdown section which is really high-energy.

The remaining 3 songs, FFH, TITL, and BTS are very light ballads. But still, 6 of the 9 songs are generally heavy and energetic.

Offline TAC

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1319 on: September 19, 2014, 02:34:07 PM »
I'm curious to know why many people claim that ADToE sounded weak, with too many ballads.
The remaining 3 songs, FFH, TITL, and BTS are very light ballads. But still, 6 of the 9 songs are generally heavy and energetic.

Lined up against the previous two albums, those three songs you mentioned really dial ADTOE back as a whole. That's OK. Those three songs are really brilliant, and they're a side of DT that I was hoping for.

When watching Score, see how glowingly JP talks about 8V?
would have thought the same thing but seeing the OP was TAC i immediately thought Maiden or DT related
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Offline RoeDent

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1320 on: September 21, 2014, 05:29:53 AM »
This week sees the 1st anniversary of the release of DT12. It'll be interesting to see how people view the album having had a whole year to digest the songs.

Offline erwinrafael

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1321 on: September 21, 2014, 07:25:07 AM »
This week sees the 1st anniversary of the release of DT12. It'll be interesting to see how people view the album having had a whole year to digest the songs.

I listen to DT 12 twice a day now. That's how much I fell in love with the album, just behind Awake.

Offline bl5150

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1322 on: September 21, 2014, 07:30:28 AM »
DT 12 remains at No 2 on my rankings behind the "untouchable" Images and Words.
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Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1323 on: September 21, 2014, 07:31:41 AM »
1 year anniversary would mean I haven't listened to it in about a year.
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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1324 on: September 21, 2014, 07:37:25 AM »
1 year anniversary would mean I haven't listened to it in about a year.

So Optimus Prime's hands are broken?
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Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1325 on: September 21, 2014, 07:39:41 AM »
1 year anniversary would mean I haven't listened to it in about a year.

So Optimus Prime's hands are broken?

I don't follow.
Only King could mis-spell a LETTER.
Yep. I think the only party in the MP/DT situation that hasn't moved on is DTF.

Offline King Postwhore

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1326 on: September 21, 2014, 07:41:35 AM »
I figured you haven't played it since your hands were broken and you couldn't hit the play button. :lol


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Offline Implode

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1327 on: September 21, 2014, 01:06:45 PM »
1 year anniversary would mean I haven't listened to it in about a year.

Same for me. I suppose I should give another listen some time soon.

Offline Rodni Demental

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1328 on: September 21, 2014, 06:19:05 PM »
Since last year!?  :omg:


Offline Dublagent66

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Re: What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #1329 on: September 22, 2014, 02:31:14 PM »
This week sees the 1st anniversary of the release of DT12. It'll be interesting to see how people view the album having had a whole year to digest the songs.

Not much change here.  ADTOE aged much better at the 1 year mark even with 2 ballads that I consider "clunkers" (FFH & BTS).  DT12 has only 3 songs that I consider good.  BTV being the best followed by TLG and TEI.  Everything else is just meh...


I'm curious to know why many people claim that ADToE sounded weak, with too many ballads.

I wouldn't say it sounded weak, but it was ballad heavy :lol.  Meaning it had too many ballads.  TITL was perfect.  Sandwiching one of DT's best epics ever (BAI) between 2 additional ballads (FFH & BTS) that were unecessary just killed the ending of that album.  A relatively heavy album ending in a whimper?  Just don't get it.  Despite that, still a great album though.


Fates Warning were Queensryche wannabes anyway.

Fuck no.  People underestimate how important Fates Warning are to the progressive metal genre.

This...and FW is still proving to be very important in that respect.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2014, 03:03:41 PM by Dublagent66 »
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