Where does Illumination Theory sit in relation to the other "mega-epics"?

[King Postwhore]

Octavarium
6DOIT
The Count of Tuscany
A Change of Seasons
Illumination Theory
ITPOE

[robwebster]

That's cool. I understand your POV.

But Rob, if the next epic stops dead in its tracks 7-8 minutes in, please think of me.

Hahahaha - I'm sure I will!

[JRundquist]

A Change Of Seasons
The Count Of Tuscany
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
Octavarium
Illumination Theory
In The Presence Of Enemies

[Kotowboy]

So why does everyone rate ACOS so highly ?

Every time i've heard it i've been like This is nowhere near as good as Octavarium in my opinion. It sounds like bits and pieces they left out of other songs

[TAC]

I'm not sure that anything flows as nice as 8V, as I feel it is truly one of DT's best written songs.

ACOS also has a great flow, and is pretty powerful lyrically. That final "I will live oooooonnnnnnn" is goosebumps inducing everything. One of my favorite moments in their catalog.

[robwebster]

Octavarium's perfect - it's the constant intensifying. It fades from silence, into ambience, into orchestra, into a soft acoustic guitar bit, into soft rock, into harder rock, into technical metal, and culminates in an agonised scream. It earns the fuck out of that ending. Bloody stellar.

So I'd say "More scattershot than Octavarium" is faint scorn. I do remember it wasn't that long ago people used to complain about how wanky The Darkest of Winters was. Misplaced ire, I felt then as now. A Change of Seasons is one of those songs I never end up listening to, though - it's probably among my least-listened DT songs. It's not like Don't Look Past Me, where you can just stick it onto the end of Images and Words, or Cover My Eyes et al. where it's part and parcel of the FII demos - it doesn't fit snugly into any era or album, so it's not something I end up groping for when I fancy putting some Dream Theater on. I might pop it on a disc with Raise the Knife, as was the original plan. Figure in a couple more FII cuts, see what comes out.

[rumborak]

ACOS. It's after all *the* DT epic. I remember hearing about it before the EP came out, and it was a giddy sense of excitement to hear this "secret song" live.
Octavarium. There's just almost nothing to be criticized about, it flows very cool.
SDOIT, even though I don't see it as an epic
TCOT. Always liked the "openness" of the song.
Illumination Theory. OK song I guess, but it's just sooo "been there, done that".  Single most redeeming thing is the orchestral section.



ITPOE. WTF.

[TAC]

BUT the orchestra section is the "been there done that" part of the song! The only difference is that they are actually using an orchestra.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

The orchestra section is my favorite part of the song.

[TheGreatPretender]

Hey, you can call it "Been there done that" but IT isn't about doing something new and innovative with the TD formula, it's about perfecting it.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

I'd like to preface this by saying that DT are masters in the epics department. Not a single one disappoints me.

1. A Change of Seasons / Octavarium
These two are interchangeable for me at any time. No matter how many times I listen to either, I can't bring myself to choose one or the other. Octavarium has that absolutely amazing ambient intro and some of DT's best instrumental passages ever, as well as some of JLB's most stunning vocal performances. The entire song flows so incredibly well, I still have trouble wrapping my head around that. ACOS has other strengths and is consistently impressing throughout. It never feels like it delves in something for too long and soon moves on to the next interesting idea.

2. Illumination Theory: Amazing riffage, amazing grooves, JLB is on fire and MM's drumming truly shining. The controversial orchestral section sits so well with me, I can't possibly see any issue in it.

3. The Count of Tuscany: The intro and ending are definite highlights not only for Black Clouds as an album, but in all of DT's discography. Seriously some of the most beautiful stuff they've ever composed, as well as the ambient section in the middle.

4. In the Presence of Enemies: Obviously their heaviest, and one that delivers. I can never understand how anyone can say it isn't amazing. Yes, this falls right into "typical DT wankery", but I fucking love it, and the instrumentation fits the theme so well.

5. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence: The fact that this one comes last shouldn't be seen as any sort of detriment. I think the only thing it might suffer from is some sections feeling somewhat long and drawn out and not flowing quite as well as their other epics. It's much easier to see it as seven separate songs, but each one leaves me satisfied in the end and there are still definite highlights to be found throughout.

[BlobVanDam]

So why does everyone rate ACOS so highly ?

Every time i've heard it i've been like This is nowhere near as good as Octavarium in my opinion. It sounds like bits and pieces they left out of other songs

I agree. There's no section of it I think is *bad*, but it doesn't have the high points of any of the other epics to me, and for me the songwriting still has too many relics of the WDADU era style of songwriting. The final version was much improved, but it still feels like a young band who just threw everything in there to be prog.

[KevShmev]

Throwing it all in there just to be prog sums up Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence for me in a nutshell, and the transitions in that are far more jarring and forced than any you hear in A Change of Seasons.

Don't get me wrong, I still love most of the individual sections of SDOIT, but a cohesive and well-flowing whole, it is certainly not. 

[Bolsters]

Six Degrees
Octavarium
The Count of Tuscany
A Change of Seasons
Illumination Theory
In The Presence of Enemies

[BlobVanDam]

Throwing it all in there just to be prog sums up Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence for me in a nutshell, and the transitions in that are far more jarring and forced than any you hear in A Change of Seasons.

Don't get me wrong, I still love most of the individual sections of SDOIT, but a cohesive and well-flowing whole, it is certainly not. 

But SDOIT isn't long just to be prog, in fact the reason it works so perfectly is because it's a long piece that benefits from more "pop" structured sensibilities in each section to give it strong melodies and hooks.
ACOS just feels scrappy to me. It feels like a 20 minute WDADU song with JLB on vocals. The 1995 version was an improvement, but it still retained a lot of those problems.

[manticore999]

I am counting only those epics that are close to 20 minutes or longer.  Yes, there are obviously epics I am leaving out.  But A Change Of Seasons set the bar higher in terms of gigantic epics for the band, and even they seem to put their longer songs into a different category than, say, their 10-12 minute epics.  So, rank the following:

A Change Of Seasons
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Octavarium
In The Presence Of Enemies
The Count of Tuscany
Illumination Theory

A few months ago, I would have ranked IT pretty low.  I liked all the parts, but there are so many disparate things going on throughout the course of the song that it wasn't really clicking for me as a whole piece.  I have gotten past that and really love it now.  Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how I would rank it.  But I will do my best to post my ranking later.

Of these listed, only 6DOIT would make my list.  ITPOE would be up there too, but only part one - the rest couldn't hold my interest.  Never liked ACOS, or 8VM and I always found TCOT to be one of their worst songs.

[gentaishinigami]

ACOS (demo version)

Tied:
IT
TCOT

ACOS (album version)
Octavarium
SDOIT
ITPOE

It pains me to rank ITPOE that low because I really love the song, but it's up against harsh competition! 

[jcmistat]

I made an entire ranking of their discography a few years ago but its different than off the top of my head. I need to listen the epics again. Rankings change constantly for me.

Six Degrees
Octavarium
A Change of Seasons
ITPOE
The Count of Tuscany
Illumination Theory

[robwebster]

Throwing it all in there just to be prog sums up Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence for me in a nutshell, and the transitions in that are far more jarring and forced than any you hear in A Change of Seasons.

Don't get me wrong, I still love most of the individual sections of SDOIT, but a cohesive and well-flowing whole, it is certainly not. 

But SDOIT isn't long just to be prog, in fact the reason it works so perfectly is because it's a long piece that benefits from more "pop" structured sensibilities in each section to give it strong melodies and hooks.
ACOS just feels scrappy to me. It feels like a 20 minute WDADU song with JLB on vocals. The 1995 version was an improvement, but it still retained a lot of those problems.

I know what you mean, but I quite like that it's got aspects of the entire Moore era. I like that it doesn't belong to any one album cycle - you can hear the band that wrote The Killing Hand, the band that wrote Under a Glass Moon and the band that wrote Voices all sort of jostling about, and I think they dovetail nicely. It summarises an entire era in a way that no song ever did before or since - and while I don't think that's the definitive Dream Theater, I think it's a golden age but the first of many, I completely respect that for some people, those albums are about as good as it got, so I totally get that for some of those people, something that reeks of all three of them, for twenty minutes, with technicality and riffs and emotion, would kind of be the last word in Dream Theater.

[hefdaddy42]

A Change Of Seasons
Illumination Theory
Octavarium
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
In The Presence Of Enemies
The Count of Tuscany

TCOT would probably be higher if it weren't for the mind-numbing lyrics.  But even so, both that and ITPOE don't feel as "epic" to me as the other four - they seem just like really long songs.  Just a "feel" thing for me.

[Onno]

Octavarium
A Change of Seasons
Six Degress of Inner Turbulence
In the Presence of Enemies
The Count of Tuscany


Illumination Theory

[GasparXR]

Octavarium
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Illumination Theory

The Count of Tuscany
A Change of Seasons

In the Presence of Enemies

[iamtheeviltwin]

Octavarium - The best constructed and most cohesive of their epics, plus Floyd filled goodness
ACOS - While there are still some flaws, nostalgia keeps this one high up my rankings a bit.  It is the epic I judge ever epic against.
6DOIT - This was probably the single most played disc in my music collection combined with the Score version for years
IT - The strings and the "easter egg" nudge this just a smidge above TCOT for me...also stronger lyrical themes
TCOT - Better musical themes overall than IT, but far weaker lyrics drag it just below IT.
ITPOE - If they would have released this as a single combined song with a good connector and trimmed about a 1m or so from the 2nd part it would be better than TCOT.

[FlyingBIZKIT]

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Octavarium
A Change of Seasons
The Count of Tuscany
Illumination Theory
In The Presence of Enemies

[RoeDent]

1. A Change of Seasons
2. Octavarium
3. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
4. Illumination Theory
5. The Count of Tuscany
6. In the Presence of Enemies

[emtee]

So damn tough because they are all great. At this moment, on this day...

1) ACoS


2) All tied - SDoIT, TCoT, ItPoE, IT


3) 8V


I will say that the middle section of IT is some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard. By any band.

[KevShmev]

Throwing it all in there just to be prog sums up Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence for me in a nutshell, and the transitions in that are far more jarring and forced than any you hear in A Change of Seasons.

Don't get me wrong, I still love most of the individual sections of SDOIT, but a cohesive and well-flowing whole, it is certainly not. 

But SDOIT isn't long just to be prog, in fact the reason it works so perfectly is because it's a long piece that benefits from more "pop" structured sensibilities in each section to give it strong melodies and hooks.
ACOS just feels scrappy to me. It feels like a 20 minute WDADU song with JLB on vocals. The 1995 version was an improvement, but it still retained a lot of those problems.

Well, I am pretty sure we will never agree on this, so we can agree to disagree.

[Crow]

A Change Of Seasons




Octavarium



The Count of Tuscany

In The Presence Of Enemies
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Illumination Theory

With some scaling for emphasis.

[The Letter M]

Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
Octavarium / A Change Of Seasons
Illumination Theory
The Count Of Tuscany
In The Presence Of Enemies

Now, don't get me wrong - I really enjoy ITPOE (especially as one track, which is the only way I listen to it anymore), but TCOT has better musical moments. It is rather interesting, though, how IT has shot up past them. It really has some great parts and it's a very beautiful epic. The top three, however, will always be top three, and SDOIT will always be my favorite epic by DT.

-Marc.

[Daso]

A Change of Seasons
Illumination Theory
Octavarium
In the Presence of Enemies
The Count of Tuscany
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

I had not heard A Change of Seasons in quite a while, but when I heard it perhaps a month ago, it still held on to the great song I remembered it to be. Perhaps the most chill-inducing DT song ever, so I couldn't rank IT on the first spot. It takes the second, quite fairly I think. Very entertaining to listen, has a ton of jaw-dropping moments, nice lyrical content.

TCoT has never felt like an epic to me, but if it was to be considered one, it's better than SDoIT. I like the individual pieces of the latter, but as one whole song it's extremely bloated. Too much different stuff going on in an overly-long period for a song (please don't even mention TA's The Whirlwind).

[mikemangioy]

Octavarium
In The Presence Of Enemies
Illumination Theory
The Count Of Tuscany
A Change Of Seasons
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence

[Ħ]

The OP listed what I think are some of the greatest DT tracks in the entire discography. I think Illumination Theory is good but not quite on that level. It would certainly make the second highest tier (in the ranks of Breaking All Illusions, Finally Free, and In the Name of God), but it lacks that certain magic factor necessary to boost it to top tier status. Here's how I'd rank 'em:

1. A Change of Seasons
2. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
3. Octavarium
4. In the Presence of Enemies - This is the only one that probably needs to be justified. I really like this epic and think it tells a great story. Good lyrics, gnarly riffs, solid mix...nothing to complain about, IMO. (Well, maybe the Super Mario wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah Ruddess thing right before the final verse.)
5. The Count of Tuscany
6. Illumination Theory

[CrimsonSunrise]

1. A Change Of Seasons

2. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

3. Octavarium



4. In The Presence Of Enemies
5. Illumination Theory
6. The Count of Tuscany

[erwinrafael]

It is second highest-rating epic for me, behind Six Degrees of Inner turbulence. Octavarium would come in third.

Some posters here have seen my reason for liking IT, but JUST because I see yet another complaint about disjointedness of the piece, I will quote myself again on my explanation on why IT is not a disjointed piece. It is actually a very cohesive piece in that each movement has a purpose in the whole narrative. Even moreso than Octavarium.

I commented on this in the Illumination Theory appreciation thread, so I will just transfer here a modified version of what I said since we are talking about disjointedness. IT is very cohesive for me because of the symmetry of the song.

Section 1: Paradox of the Black Light. Slow, majestic, a bit heavy so it is not yet "illuminated". This is an overture to the un-illuminated sections of the song.

Section 2: The heavy riffing section. At first this seems to be just a wanky instrumental but it actually acts as a bridge between Section 1 and Section 3. This serves an important narrative function once we get to the later sections. Note also that it is mostly a standard rocking beat, with some time signature changes only at the end upon approaching the Live, Die, Kill section.

Section 3: Live, Die Kill. The section poses the questions: What are you willing to live for? to die for? to kill for? It is asking for "an answer that begs to be found". The section has two subsections: the first has lyrics playing to a main riff, the second is the instrumental section that has plenty of time signature changes.

Section 4: Embracing Circle, ambient section. If Live, Die, Kill referred to a more down-to-earth plane of existence, to grounded reality, the Embracing Circle is situated in a transcendental plane. The ambient section is formless and lengthy, which signifies that the questions posed in Live, Die, Kill remain unanswered even in a moment of transcendence and it remains quite unanswered for a long time. The length of the section is important because it serves the narrative function of indicating that illumination or enlightenment does not come easily.

BREAK in the Narrative: Now we start to mirror the previous sections.

Section 5: Embracing Circle, orchestral section. This mirrors Section 4. We are still in the transcendental plane, but unlike Section 4, illumination starts to creep in slowly with the build up of the orchestral part. Illumination climaxes with a moment of enlightenment, signified by the orchestral version of the intro melody. It sort of mirrors Section 1 as well. The end of the orchestral section is an overture to the "illuminated" section of the song, The Pursuit of Truth. It will not serve its proper narrative function if it is placed at the start, because the more heavy-sounding music of Paradox of the Black Light  better fits as an introduction to the "un-illuminated" Live, Die and Kill section. The two overtures share the same melody.

Section 6. The Pursuit of Truth. This mirrors Section 3. The section starts with reverse swells, which signals a return from the transcendental plane to grounded reality. After the moment of enlightenment in The Embracing Circle, the song now has answers to the questions posed in Live, Die, Kill.  What are mothers willing to live, die and kill for? Their children. Husbands are willing to live, die and kill for their wives. Martyrs are willing to live die and kill for the kingdom. And so on and so forth. The Pursuit of Truth answers the questions of Live, Die, Kill. Still mirroring Section 3, the section also has two subsections: the first has lyrics playing to a main riff, the second is the instrumental section that has plenty of time signature changes.

Section 7: The heavy riffing section. This mirrors Section 2. It follows the same structure and uses the same riff! This serves as a bridge between Section 6 and Section 8. While Section 2 bridged the Paradox to the questions, Section 7 bridged the answers to the Paradox. Like Section 2, this section has a lot of wanky instrumentals and plays to a standard rocking beat, with a change in the tempo at the end approaching the Surrender, Trust and Passion section.

Section 8. Surrender, Trust and Passion. And now we have come full circle. This mirrors Section 1. Section 8 is also slow and majestic, but unlike Section 1, it is uplifting because illumination has already been achieved. Section 1 is titled the Paradox of the Black Light, and the lyrics in Section 8 spell out the paradox. And if I overanalyze the lyrics, even the lyrics here are symmetrical. LOL

Introduce with a paradox:
"To really feel the joy in life
You must suffer through the pain"

Surrender: Lyrics refer to illumination by referencing light.
"When you surrender to the light
You can face the darkest days"

Trust: Middle section, still in keeping the visuality of the Illumination Theory, we refer to opening one's eyes.
"If you open up your eyes
And you put your trust in love
On those cold and endless nights
You will never be alone"

Passion: Mirror the Surrender subsection. Lyrics refer to illumination by referencing bright.
"Passion glows within your heart
Like a furnace burning bright"

Mirror the intro. End with a paradox:
"Until you struggle through the dark
You'll never know that you're alive"

And as one more bit of analysis, which may be stretching a bit. Paradox of the Black Light started with a crescendo drum roll. Surrender, Trust and Passion ends with a decrescendo drum roll.

----------
This is how I viewed IT. Which is why I don't think I will really understand how it can be described as disjointed. It is very cohesive not just lyrically but structurally as well. The disjoint that some people feel, I think, is because the narrative of the song is really about transitioning from dark to light but ending up in a paradox where light is in the darkness. There is a deliberate disjointedness, from grounded to transcendent, from fast to slow parts. The transitions serve a narrative function.

[GasparXR]

Erwinrafael, I really like your interpretation of IT! A lot of that actually makes sense, and I wouldn't be that surprised if some of it turned out to be intentional.