anyone bummed that there aren't any "epics" in the new album?

[djentlemen]

does anyone feel bummed that there aren't any "epic" epics on the new album? like 16 mins+ long tracks?

[EasterDavy]

no

[nikatapi]

I actually feel excited about that. More cohesive songs with less unnecessary sections.

[BlobVanDam]

The word epic is meaningless and stupid, and is not defined by song length. It is defined by the way a song progresses, which cannot be judged until you've at least heard a song.

[DreamerTV]

The word epic is meaningless and stupid, and is not defined by song length

This. Even if MP itself used to use that word associated with lenght.


Btw, Blob, who the hell is that girl in your signature? And what is she saying? It's quite hypnotical...

[BlobVanDam]

Btw, Blob, who the hell is that girl in your signature? And what is she saying? It's quite hypnotical...

Click her and all will be revealed.

[2Timer]

I hope I picked the right answer. I would have preferred yes, no, or maybe as options. I don't really care how long a song is if it's great.

[Zydar]

I hope I picked the right answer. I would have preferred yes, no, or maybe as options. I don't really care how long a song is if it's great.

All of this.

[Raoul Sanchez]

No, they already have plenty of epics.

[DreamerTV]

Btw, Blob, who the hell is that girl in your signature? And what is she saying? It's quite hypnotical...

Click her and all will be revealed.

 Never saw a video of Blackmore's Night. I mean, i love Blackmore's playing and the music isn't that bad, but for some reason i can't help myself laughing.

[djentlemen]

mm im a little buzzed right now , ill try to explain why duration somewhat a factor in making a song , ill try to quote a few examples like 8vm, acos or sdoit , marvelous and astounding songs ,each longer than 20 mins in length and packed with all sorts of DT goodness , its listening to these long songs having a gradual change in movements  or parts  ( medicate to full circle , innocence - carpe diem ) while maintaining an overall theme makes it an an epic , where you can get lost in its lenghty duration.

although some like antr, tcot or  itpoe pt2 are drastically dragged and can probably fit into a song half its duration ,

so , there you go

[IdoSC]

Nope, epic isn't supposedly better in my eyes. Especially in the last 2 albums, where I personally thought the epics sounded rather tired, so I'm happy about that decision.

[hefdaddy42]

does anyone feel bummed that there aren't any "epic" epics on the new album? like 16 mins+ long tracks?

What?  No.

[Victor Alexandrov]

No.

[millahh]

Relieved, actually.

[tri.ad]

Long song with more than 15 minutes in length =/= epic.

But still, it's a nice change that there are no huge songs on the album. The track lengths give me some kind of an FII feeling, and I like that.

[krands85]

The long songs tend to be amongst my favourites, but I don't want them to write one just for the sake of it.

Plus, there are no songs of 15minutes+ on my favourite 2 DT albums anyway 

[hefdaddy42]

The long songs tend to be amongst my favourites, but I don't want them to write one just for the sake of it.

Plus, there are no songs of 15minutes+ on my favourite 2 DT albums anyway 

True, true.

[Millais]

The long songs tend to be amongst my favourites, but I don't want them to write one just for the sake of it.

Plus, there are no songs of 15minutes+ on my favourite 2 DT albums anyway 

very good response.

while i loved TCoT & Octavarium, i feel that this album, despite not having any of these so called "epics" is just going to be "epic" in itself. Plus, "Breaking all Illusions", although not as long as previous "epics", will surely count as one!

[jimgolf]

Songs can easily be "epic" without being 20 mins long(take the time, lines in the sand, only a matter of time).

[LTE3]

Not at all, I'm thrilled we will hear more songs this time round.

[King Postwhore]

The long songs tend to be amongst my favourites, but I don't want them to write one just for the sake of it.

Plus, there are no songs of 15minutes+ on my favourite 2 DT albums anyway 

Yes, that is so true.  I'm just so jacked to hear the new tunes short or long.

[2Timer]

Songs can easily be "epic" without being 20 mins long(take the time, lines in the sand, only a matter of time).

Very well put. To me, an epic song is a song that sounds big or majestic, which doesn't really have much to do with the length of the piece. What makes is feel epic to me is the overall sound, meaning the composition, as well as the instrumentation. A lot of times I think it's JR's contributions that make the songs sound 'epic'; the strings in songs like Forsaken and the endings of OTBOA and Sacrificed Sons are the examples that come to mind right now. A lot of JP's melodies have the same quality, like his guitar line where it slows down a little in the intro of ITPOE part 1.
The guys know how to make something sound 'big', and to me that's what makes an epic song.

[Areola]

No I am not bummed. I see this as a good thing, as it looks - as others have already said - that the songs might just be little bit more cohesive than they were. After all, for me that is, it's the longs songs from the other the last two albums that was the reason I didn't like them as much. ANTR, TDEN, TMOLS and so on. Most of these songs sounded like they were long just to be long, and I oddly prefer quality over quantity. Sure I like my songs long, but there has to be a reason to it, not just cutting and pasting new riffs and melodies atop of it all. For example TDEN and ITPOE part 2, to me at least in the instrumental sections, sound like cut and paste. Most of them didn't correspond to the riffs coming before them. Either way that was a long rant then I wanted to say, so I'll stop here.

Edit: Also I agree that epics doesn't necessarily equate long songs(+15)

[FlyingBIZKIT]

I don't care really. I love long songs, and I love their short songs. It doesn't depend on the length though.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

lol the options

[The Letter M]

I think the band's first five albums were pretty good without having tracks over 15/16 minutes long, and many fans consider some of those albums to contain some of the band's classic epics.

Just as Blob said, it's what the song does, not for how long it does it. It's like sex - just because you can do it for 23 minutes doesn't mean it's entirely good the whole time - but if you can blow someone's mind in 9-12 minutes, then that's epic.

-Marc.

[ElliottTamer]

Epic is such a relative word to use... I usually quite like DT's longer songs, but the album is pretty long, so I don't think we're losing minutes here. And some of the songs might be pretty epic by themselves (Breaking All Illusions, Outcry, Bridges in the Sky).
Coming from a DT perspective, I think we forget a little bit how long the songs we listen to actually are. I mean, everyone agrees that Octavarium and ACOS are epics (partially because they are such great songs, but more importantly because they are also 20 something minutes long). If you check most other band's albums, they rarely have songs over 15 minutes, let alone so many over 10 (4 just on this album). And most bands don't have such long albums either (with the exception of the first couple of albums, every DT album has over 70 minutes of length (ToT actually has only 69... but SDoIT makes up for that with 96), while most bands I've been looking at lately get around 40, maybe 50...)

[fibreoptix]

I think if DT were to attempt an epic in the Portnoy sense of the word (read: length) for ADTOE, they'd possibly be in danger of looking like they were trying too hard to prove that they could write 'the very bestest song in their whole careers!!' in order to weather the internal shifts and show everyone that they've still got it. I'm not saying that would be their intentions, but what with speculation and fan interpretation being what it is, they'd be running a bit of a risk.

But what they've done is just stuck to what feels natural and right. Without hearing too much, it seems as if they've written nine very comfortable, quintissential 'Dream Theater' songs that they can have a lot of fun showcasing and performing. Maybe. I'm not entirely sure I conveyed my point adequately.

So in short... no, I'm not bummed.

[senecadawg2]

While my favorite song is an epic (ACOS), my three favorite discs didn't have any epics on them. I am completely fine if I get another SFAM if it means no track like the Count of Tuscany

[Jamesman42]

I'm glad there are no epics so that they can take a different approach to the album's songwriting (and from all the reviews, it's gonna kick ass)

[LieLowTheWantedMan]

There might be epics. For me, lengths only have a very small part in epics. Listen to Halleluhwah by Can. 18 minutes long, but there is no way in hell I would ever even consider calling it an epic. It's one of my favourite songs of all time, but there's no way. Then take Metropolis Part 1, which is under 10 minutes, but it is undeniably an epic IMO. As I said in a different thread, I find a song is an epic if it's epic.

[EpicCookie]

a new +16 minutes song would've been nice, but still that doesn't mean there is NO epic as jimgolf said

[BlobVanDam]

I don't see what the big deal is. 6/8 of the songs on Octavarium were quite short by DT standards, and ADTOE also has more 10+ minute songs than SC and SFAM. Song lengths really do mean nothing.
Until this thread I had given no thought to the song lengths on ADTOE, just as I didn't for any other album. Really, once it's past 10 minutes what difference does it make? Put that in context for a minute.

[Crow]

The longest on I&W was 11 and a half minutes, the longest on Awake was 11 minutes (not counting the suite as a song), and the longest on SFAM was 13 minutes.

those are the band's best three albums.

so I am grateful that there are no epics.