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Author Topic: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?  (Read 12472 times)

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Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #35 on: September 29, 2015, 11:42:38 AM »
2 years ago : Very strong
Today : Instant classic
You know "instant" doesn't mean "after two years" right?
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Offline Stadler

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #36 on: September 29, 2015, 11:46:10 AM »
2 years ago : Very strong
Today : Instant classic
You know "instant" doesn't mean "after two years" right?

Holy crap, in the age of "Twitter" and what not, "two years" might as well be "infinity". 

Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #37 on: September 29, 2015, 12:32:46 PM »
I liked it initially -although I think the closing "epic" is, um, not their finest hour.


2 years later, though, my hope is their next one is more in line with ADTOE, musically.  I could do without the dull production values of ADTOE, but musically it's fantastic.  DT12 reminds me somewhat of Falling Into Infinity.  A more commercial sounding album with less complex song structures and a bit more focus on melody, which, unfortunately falls a little flat for me. 


The thing is, I don't listen to Dream Theater for commercial-sounding music.  I listen to them for precisely the opposite reason.  DT12 is not a bad album, per se.  "Illumination Theory" is just...sorry but to me it comes off as totally phoned in.  In fact, the entire album strikes me that way.  Like they didn't try very hard to craft these tracks.  They can spin it all they want and call it "stripped down" or whatever.  I call it lazy.  Dream Theater can do much better than DT12 and I still think they have another album like 6DOIT or SFAM - experimental, aggressive and beautiful, complex and intricate, with bone-crushing riffs, jaw-dropping virtuosity and precision.  I know they've got one more like that in them. 


Offline Kotowboy

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #38 on: September 29, 2015, 12:53:52 PM »
2 years ago : instant classic.

Today : Meh.


And Falling Into Infinity is much better than DT12 on almost every level.

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #39 on: September 29, 2015, 01:58:38 PM »
DT12 reminds me somewhat of Falling Into Infinity.  A more commercial sounding album with less complex song structures and a bit more focus on melody, which, unfortunately falls a little flat for me.
Almost exactly how I feel.  But I found much more to like in FII.  Never quite found a single song on DT12 that felt like a classic.  It feels like DT homogenized.

But at the same time, I never felt like it was bad.  Illumination Theory had some really great stuff in it.  But the parts are greater than the whole.  The Enemy Inside is a good "pulse elevating" song, but nothing extraordinary.  The rest, I almost can't even hear in my head when song titles are mentioned, and I listened to ADToE and DT12 much more upfront than the previous 3 albums.  If I had any bias going in, it was to find something to like.  With that in mind, I went from telling myself I liked it to admitting to myself that maybe it will never grow on me.  But that took a few months, not the full two years.

Offline Kotowboy

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #40 on: September 29, 2015, 02:16:49 PM »
Falling Into Infinity has almost flawless production with actual seperation between instruments. The "epic" is way better and the ballads are just FAR better.

FII has Lines In The Sand - one of the best DT songs ever and Hell's Kitchen which is better than BOTH Instrumentals on DT12.

Offline ThatOneGuy2112

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #41 on: September 29, 2015, 02:46:52 PM »
FII has more highs overall, but a lot more lows as well.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #42 on: September 29, 2015, 02:57:57 PM »
FII has more highs overall, but a lot more lows as well.
I agree.

FII may be the better album (debatable), but IMO DT12 is definitely more consistent.
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Calvin6s

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #43 on: September 29, 2015, 04:58:31 PM »
FII may be the better album (debatable), but IMO DT12 is definitely more consistent.
Yeah.  Homogenized.

Offline Kotowboy

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #44 on: September 29, 2015, 04:59:06 PM »
That seems to be the word of the day.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #45 on: September 29, 2015, 05:05:27 PM »
FII may be the better album (debatable), but IMO DT12 is definitely more consistent.
Yeah.  Homogenized.
Opinions vary.
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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #46 on: September 29, 2015, 05:46:40 PM »
FII may be the better album (debatable), but IMO DT12 is definitely more consistent.
Yeah.  Homogenized.
Opinions vary.
Of course.  But we are agreeing that DT12 is homogenized.   :angel:

Offline Implode

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #47 on: September 30, 2015, 11:03:01 AM »
Disappointing. It's extremely forgetable.

Offline As I Am

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #48 on: September 30, 2015, 11:17:29 AM »
Two Years ago I said "Very strong"
Two years later I'll say "decent"

While there are many good songs, it's not really a "memorable" album per se IMO.

The Bigger Picture is my favorite, closely followed by Illumination Theory (aside from the meandering, boring and quite simply, waste of time in the middle).

I also really like Surrender To Reason, Behind The Veil and The Looking Glass.

The others aren't bad, but nothing about any of them really strikes me with excitement when i hear them.

I'd give the album a solid "B" and rate it only ahead of Systematic Chaos in the catalog.

Offline Pettor

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #49 on: October 01, 2015, 05:26:26 AM »
I am one of those who always enjoyed the newer Dream Theater albums, but this one, nope. I like Enemy Inside somewhat, but only reason for it to not be very dissapointing is IT and TBP.

The sound is so "gray" / dull / uninspired. I feel no joy. I think IT on BTFW was much better than the album version actually. It's somehow not alive on the studio version, something I never had problem with on previous Dream Theater albums.

Also songs like Enigma Machine is really just feeding the "Dream Theater is only technical" trolls. Because I agree. Enigma Machine is probably super fun to play but is just so technical, but that's all there is to the song for me.

This album make me worried for future albums. More "vers1, chorus, vers2, chorus, bridge, final chorus"-songs will just not keep me very interested anymore and please fix the sound!  :(

Edit: Had to listen to TBP and it's really good! Still with improved sound this could have been a all time favorite!
« Last Edit: October 01, 2015, 05:42:11 AM by Pettor »

Offline pcs90

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #50 on: October 01, 2015, 01:07:59 PM »
The sound is so "gray" / dull / uninspired. I feel no joy. I think IT on BTFW was much better than the album version actually. It's somehow not alive on the studio version, something I never had problem with on previous Dream Theater albums.

To me, this is a result of the mix. Listen to James' vocals on TBP and IT. I hear a lot of emotion. Then again, that could be why you said those were your favorites...but those aren't the only songs like that, just the most obvious. There's still lots of passion left, it's just the bad mix that makes it hard to really hear.

Also songs like Enigma Machine is really just feeding the "Dream Theater is only technical" trolls. Because I agree. Enigma Machine is probably super fun to play but is just so technical, but that's all there is to the song for me.

I mean, it's not my favorite DT instrumental but I'm surprised that you say it's too technical. Compared to TDOE for example this sounds much simpler and more melodic. The solos are pretty technical, but I mean the song as a whole.


Offline Bertielee

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #51 on: October 01, 2015, 01:55:29 PM »
As I stated elsewhere, what buggers me is the non-replay value of DT12. 2 years after, i would say it's only a decent album (but, man, TBP is astounding!).

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Offline OpenYourEyes311

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #52 on: October 01, 2015, 02:19:07 PM »
..the parts are greater than the whole.

Nailed it.
I don't want MP playing with DT unless they were making a drummer change. If they let MM go and bring back MP, then fine, but no guest appearance please.
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Offline Shine

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #53 on: October 05, 2015, 09:49:31 AM »
Almost exactly how I feel.  But I found much more to like in FII.

Yep. I legitimately haven't listened to DT all the way through since I first bought it, it just can't keep me interested.

Now the same is true for FII, but I go back to certain songs on FII much more often. Specifically Hells Kitchen + Lines in the Sand and Trial of Tears. Those songs are some of my favorites in the Dream Theater catalogue. Not to mention the fact that FII has a sonic quality to it that is leagues and bounds beyond what is found in DT.
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Offline Art

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #54 on: October 05, 2015, 10:20:51 AM »
Decent effort.

While i like the focus on "simpler" (by DT-standarts) songwriting and melody, i find the production (especially the drum sound) awful.


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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #55 on: October 05, 2015, 03:06:05 PM »
While i like the focus on "simpler" (by DT-standarts) songwriting and melody

I like the tightening up of songwriting, but it also kind of shows the weakness of DT.  Commercial song arrangements are usually simpler mainly because there is an extremely strong hook and making the song too long dilutes and takes away the focus of that.  My main problem with prog is the long songs are kind of a substitution or crutch that hides the lack of legitimate hooks.

I'll give too examples of DT12 on hooks.

I liked The Enemy Inside immediately.  To me, the opening pre-vocal intro is the hook and everything (except the bridge) just strongly upholds that hook.  It is concise and has a very direct musical style and theme.  Really good songwriting (although DT fans don't seem to like this song as much)

I also liked parts of Illumination Theory quite a bit.  But the larger concept took away from what could have been strong hooks that stood on their own.  Live, Die, Kill could have been a Top 20 song for me on its own.  And the Pursuit of Truth had a good hook, but less developed than Live, Die, Kill.  So two strong hooks that could have been used to create two more concise, hook driven songs ... weren't.

The rest of the album is kind of not great, not bad for me.  Nothing that would even come close to a Top 30 or maybe even Top 50 DT song for me.  And I feel it is because they really didn't have a strong hook.  They might have had hooks, but not very strong ones.

And yes, a hook is subjective.  It isn't like there is a definition that can guarantee parts of songs are universally accepted as a strong hook and others have no hooks.  Ultimately, I blame the vocalist as they are usually the songwriter in a band that creates the hook.  JP is the main songwriter (by a wide margin it seems), so the hooks are almost always the guitar over the melody.  I kind of feel like if DT forced themselves to write the melodies first (not all the time, just mix it in), they'd create a new instant classic.

Offline RuRoRul

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #56 on: October 06, 2015, 07:04:01 AM »
In terms of DT albums it's probably closer to "Meh", but that feels a bit harsh since so I went with Decent.

A few songs are very good and all of them have some merit, but I wasn't blown away when it was first released, and after a year or so I was rarely inclined to listen to it. I sometimes even found myself forgetting about it briefly and thinking of ADTOE as the last new DT album before remembering a second later "Oh, wait, DT12 was released after that". So I would have to say it was pretty forgettable and didn't have that much of an impact.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2015, 05:31:51 AM by RuRoRul »

Offline FLEEBS

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #57 on: October 06, 2015, 09:13:16 AM »
Although I now like this album more than I did upon release (and also after hearing some of the songs live), I'm still very much disappointed with DT12. It's one of my least favorite DT albums. I'm really hoping DT13 does it for me.
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Offline yeah_93

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #58 on: October 07, 2015, 04:54:09 PM »
Decent. It's been a while since I've listened to like half of the album.

Offline Rodni Demental

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #59 on: October 07, 2015, 05:47:19 PM »
I kind of feel like if DT forced themselves to write the melodies first (not all the time, just mix it in), they'd create a new instant classic.

Along for the Ride says hi. I think... JP described that being written with lyrics first so I presume some kind of melody might have been considered before the instrumentation was written?

Offline Enigmachine

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #60 on: October 08, 2015, 04:02:08 PM »
I kind of feel like if DT forced themselves to write the melodies first (not all the time, just mix it in), they'd create a new instant classic.
The thing is, how do we know that DT weren't considering the vocal melody primarily when writing (for example) Behind the Veil? We don't know their exact process of writing songs and with many DT songs being specifically created for vocals to go on top, it wouldn't be that drastic for them to say that they actually do think of the melodies first. In fact, out of the vocally driven songs, only Metropolis, Beyond This Life, Illumination Theory and maybe Panic Attack Surrender to Reason (alongside a few others I may have forgot) wouldn't have sounded awkward as an instrumental.

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #61 on: October 09, 2015, 08:35:07 AM »
JP has said on multiple occasions that they write the instrumental part of the song first.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #62 on: October 09, 2015, 10:23:54 AM »
JP has said on multiple occasions that they write the instrumental part of the song first.
They write the instrumental music before they write the lyrics, yes.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that they never write music without vocal melodies in mind.
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Offline Dr. DTVT

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #63 on: October 12, 2015, 07:33:45 AM »
Barry's (kirksnosehair) thoughts pretty much sum up what I have always felt about it.  The production is just awful.  I think I put this album aside after a week, which mean's it's probably "meh" to me.  Barry says the production is lazy, I think is says that they either forgot who their fan base is (largely geezers like me who have been fans for 15 or more years), or they are willing to cast us aside for a cash grab of new fans.

DT12 has my anticipation for DT13 at an all time low, and before anyone screams tastes change, three of the albums I'm really looking forward to next year are Redemption, Haken, and Circus Maximus (1st one is certain, 2nd and 3rd ones I'm speculating on), so I'm still very much on board with progressive metal.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2015, 08:54:20 AM by Dr. DTVT »
     

Offline ZKX-2099

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #64 on: October 13, 2015, 08:26:13 AM »
I wanna say it's their best since Train Of Thought.

Offline SupermanJLU

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #65 on: October 14, 2015, 08:54:48 PM »
Instant Classic then and I still feel the same way today.

Offline Vandalism

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #66 on: October 15, 2015, 04:00:01 AM »
This album taught me how important a component Production is in the whole perception of an album!

Catchy riffs and song movements yes but I just don't want to listen to it. I just move on to SDOIT or FII almost immediately.
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Offline FsF

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #67 on: October 15, 2015, 05:57:42 PM »
It's fine I guess. Illumination Theory is a cracker, but the rest of the album doesn't especially excite me. If the songs crop up on a shuffle I'll enjoy them, but I never find myself actively seeking out the album to listen, like I still do with most of their older stuff.

Offline Thoughtspart3

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #68 on: October 20, 2015, 12:35:03 PM »
I more and more think that this is a very good album that is crippled by poor sound quality.  It just sounds so flat.  Plus, the snare tone reduces the energy because you don't have that nice sharp crack.  It feels muted compared to other albums. 

I find myself enjoying the songs as a think about them, sing the melodies, play air drums, but when I listen to the album I don't find it very exciting.  That to me is weird.  This is why I think that the sound quality really hampered the listening experience.  I was listening to some old rush albums and compared them to DT12 and found DT12 so lifeless when I took 2112 out and compared it to DT12.  It is striking.   

Offline Dublagent66

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Re: After 2 years... What are your thoughts on DT12?
« Reply #69 on: October 21, 2015, 11:16:38 AM »
Disappointing. It's extremely forgetable.

What album are we talking about?  I forgot.   :lol :lol
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