A Dramatic Turn Of Events - One Year On

[SuperTaco]

After hearing the album a few times after release, it was easily in my top 3. A year later, it's probably my 4th favorite DT album. It's consistently good from start to finish with very few weak moments. When I listen to these songs I really feel like I'm listening to a band that's focused and locked in with something to prove, and at the same time it has many of the common elements that DT are known for.

For me it's a really complete album. It doesn't need extra songs and it doesn't need any taken away. It doesn't focus on one side of Dream Theater much more than the other and it's the kind of DT album a new fan can get into the band with. I know because I've introduced people to DT with this album and the results have been nothing but positive.

Overall it's dropped ever so slightly in my list but it's still one of their best IMO.

[wolven74]

It's my second favourite album after Images. That is all ye know on Earth and all ye need to know 

This.

[novenpeter]

This year had gone so fast, i still remember the feeling of listening OTBoA first time

[Dreamer81]

ADTOE aged incredibly weel, I would rank him in my top 3 with, for sure after SFAM!

[Cyclopssss]

Still solid in my book. Probably my third fave DT cd.

[?]

I still love ADTOE as much as I did upon its release - it's my 3rd favorite DT album behind Awake and I&W. I didn't become a fan until the release of Black Clouds so that's the only comprarison I can make, but it didn't age that well; I started to see some flaws in the songs after some time.

[HeAvY-MeTaL-MaN]

It's a very good album. I like it! I wasn't too sure if I was keen on it to start with but it grew on me more and more over time. Seeing several of these tracks live really helps you to appriciate them more and how awesome DT are 

[Cruithne]

It's one of my favourites - it's really held up well over time. I'd rank it as a top tier album, though it's a shade off I&W and SFaM. My rankings, tiered, look like this now:

I&W
SFaM
ADTOE
Awake
-------
8vm
6DoIT
-------
FII
WDaDU
-------
SC
ToT
BC&SL

[Ruba]

I don't really care about it. OTBOA, BITS and BAI are great and a couple of others are very good, but in overall ADTOE pales in comparison with almost any other DT album.

[Android_D]

It's somewhere in my top 3, along with Images and Words and Six Degrees.

[IdoSC]

A year ago I was completely shocked by the sole fact that DT can still surprise me that much.

My direct opinion about ADTOE: It's been one of the top 3 DT albums that I still can't rank one over the other to this day (Images, SFAM and now ADTOE). Amazing, powerful, diverse, representative of everything I love and adore about this band while keeping it new and fresh in every necessary way.

SO ENERGY. POWAH.

[Miyazaki74]

Overall it's their best since SDOIT but I still like everything from I&W to SDOIT more.

[Mladen]

It's up there right behind the Holy Trinity of DT albums, those being Scenes, I&W and Awake. The entire album is great, it's actually getting better as time goes by, although I liked it from the start.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

I so wish this is like their modern SFAM, so their next becomes their modern SDOIT. You know, in SFAM they re-define their style and stay true to the conception of the band. And that being left clear, they go out in a frenzy of awesome experimentation in SDOIT and created my fave DT album. I so hope.

[ZKX-2099]

I haven't listened to it at all this year. While it's a consistently decent album, it never excited me like every other new DT release did, so I only listened to it for a couple of weeks before losing interest entirely. I've tried listening to it a few times more recently, but it didn't hold my interest.
At highest it would be 7th for me, although more like 8th or 9th.

Ditto.

And BMU,BMD seems to get worse with each play. But Breaking All Illusions is god tier.

[TL]

The album has aged extremely well for me. I still regularly listen to songs from it.

[Kwyjibo]

Solid effort which definitely gets more replay from me than either SC or BC&SL got a year after the release.

[BelichickFan]

I listen to it constantly.  I love it as much as ever, the one track which I do like a lot more now that at first is Bridges in the Sky.  Actually, Lost Not Forgotten too since I saw it live.  It just seemed bigger live and that's carried over for me.

Regardless, ADToE joins Images & Words and Awake in my top three.  No particular order although I do listen to ADToE way more.

[darkshade]

I so wish this is like their modern SFAM, so their next becomes their modern SDOIT. You know, in SFAM they re-define their style and stay true to the conception of the band. And that being left clear, they go out in a frenzy of awesome experimentation in SDOIT and created my fave DT album. I so hope.

I think they're going to include a lot of world music influences on DT12, as they were originally going to do on SDOIT. They already teased it with Bridges In The Sky.

[SystematicThought]

Speaking of BITS- I want a drum stem for that. He's doing some incredible stuff in the end. Sound like machine guns

[tartarus250]

still loving it. i listen to it just about once a week :-) although i am still not to happy with the mix!

[Lolzeez]

Here's my album rankngs

SFAM
I&W/SDOIT
ADTOE
Awake
ToT
FII
Octavarium
SC
WDADU
BC&SL

[BlackInk]

It's pretty great, haven't ranked the songs or albums in a long time but I'm pretty sure it's still close to the top spot. Probably 2nd, after Six Degrees.

Build Me Up, Break Me Down has gotten a bit "worse" over this year though, I loved it in the beginning but now it's a bit boring as some of you said. And I can barely stand Lost Not Forgotten, I do not like those lyrics...

[kirksnosehair]

For me it has settled into the middle of the pack somewhere musically.  I'm afraid the production values hold it back quite a bit though.   I hope they do something different -sonically- on the next album.

[bosk1]

For me it has settled into the middle of the pack somewhere musically.  I'm afraid the production values hold it back quite a bit though.   I hope they do something different -sonically- on the next album.

What production issues are you referring to?  The only thing I do not like, production-wise, is that the drums do not sound as crisp or have as much "pop" as how Portnoy's drums were recorded/mixed.  But I am curious to hear what issues you have with the production.

[Adami]

For me it has settled into the middle of the pack somewhere musically.  I'm afraid the production values hold it back quite a bit though.   I hope they do something different -sonically- on the next album.

What production issues are you referring to?  The only thing I do not like, production-wise, is that the drums do not sound as crisp or have as much "pop" as how Portnoy's drums were recorded/mixed.  But I am curious to hear what issues you have with the production.

Well most of the problems I have are indeed limited to the drums, but there's quite a few of them. Many of the drum issues I actually blame on the drums themselves, he was using a terrible sounding kit. Also yes, they were mixed very poorly on most songs. Also, they were mixed from song to song with apparently no regard to how they sounded on any other song. The drums sound very different from song to song, which is quite annoying. On top of that the vocals and guitar also lack a little bit of richness, but not a huge deal. The levels (minus the drums) are generally way better than they have been in years. The only other complaint I can think of right now is that on BMU, BMD, the bass is......well not really there.

[ronrule]

Listened to it a ton non-stop for the first month after it arrived and loved it. It has since lost some of it's sheen...

There are many things I like about it: Primarily I like it's vision of DT, it's return to that core sound of prog/pop/metal balance.

The primary weakness of the album is the melodic and dynamic simplicity of it's vocals. There's a lot of interesting musical interplay of riffs and sounds coming from the instruments, but the vocal melodies almost always take the easiest route through them all. This can give a nice "soaring" effect to a song like On the Backs of Angels, but when repeated on nearly every song makes the album too one-dimensional. I get a similar feeling when listening to one of LaBrie's solo albums: the vocal lines are too easy, too generic. Not that they are too easy to sing, but they are the easiest choice, melodically. There are no vocal acrobatics, no curveballs, no choices that make me sit up and take notice. The results of which are, for me, a somewhat shallow and short-lived album listening experience.

[Jaq]

While it had the new car smell, and just after I caught the band live last October, I ranked it #3 on my DT list behind SFAM and I&W. A year later, it's still there. I love it to bits.

[krands85]

Number 3 behind Images and ToT for me not long after it came out and it's still there now    A very consistent album with loads of great high points. A top 5 song in BAI and three more in my top 20 - BitS, OtBoA and Outcry

[GasparXR]

Listened to it a ton non-stop for the first month after it arrived and loved it. It has since lost some of it's sheen...

There are many things I like about it: Primarily I like it's vision of DT, it's return to that core sound of prog/pop/metal balance.

The primary weakness of the album is the melodic and dynamic simplicity of it's vocals. There's a lot of interesting musical interplay of riffs and sounds coming from the instruments, but the vocal melodies almost always take the easiest route through them all. This can give a nice "soaring" effect to a song like On the Backs of Angels, but when repeated on nearly every song makes the album too one-dimensional. I get a similar feeling when listening to one of LaBrie's solo albums: the vocal lines are too easy, too generic. Not that they are too easy to sing, but they are the easiest choice, melodically. There are no vocal acrobatics, no curveballs, no choices that make me sit up and take notice. The results of which are, for me, a somewhat shallow and short-lived album listening experience.

I can see what you mean, but Bridges in the Sky has some odd vocal melodies responding to the changing chords. The example I have in mind is "death survivor, take me higher, reunite my soul". The scale of notes changes between the three lines, I always thought that sounded interesting.

[Phoenix87x]

ADTOE still stands as one of my favorite DT albums.

[Pibtor]

I agree with most of the replies of this topic. Definitely, ADTOE adds a freshness that wasnt shown up in the previous albums (SC, BC&SL or even Octavarium). At first, i was kinda sceptical, but as someone said before, this album gets better with time (ok, after the south american tour).

My fav albums of DT are
1- I&W
2- Awake
3- ADTOE
3.5- SFAM

[Sycsa]

Listened to it a ton non-stop for the first month after it arrived and loved it. It has since lost some of it's sheen...

There are many things I like about it: Primarily I like it's vision of DT, it's return to that core sound of prog/pop/metal balance.

The primary weakness of the album is the melodic and dynamic simplicity of it's vocals. There's a lot of interesting musical interplay of riffs and sounds coming from the instruments, but the vocal melodies almost always take the easiest route through them all. This can give a nice "soaring" effect to a song like On the Backs of Angels, but when repeated on nearly every song makes the album too one-dimensional. I get a similar feeling when listening to one of LaBrie's solo albums: the vocal lines are too easy, too generic. Not that they are too easy to sing, but they are the easiest choice, melodically. There are no vocal acrobatics, no curveballs, no choices that make me sit up and take notice. The results of which are, for me, a somewhat shallow and short-lived album listening experience.

I agree. The vocal parts, especially the choruses always seem a bit too stretched out and verging on cheesy. In spite of that, I still love the album and consider it to be one of their finest moments since Six Degrees.

[Dacling]

For me it is the exact middle of my DT albums list with SFAM, I&W, 6DOIT, Awake, and ToT beating it out. It could have been higher than Train of Thought if it wasn't for a few things. For me Build Me Up Break Me Down is one of the worst songs they have ever written being just barely better than A Rite of Passage and You Not Me. Outcry, Lost Not Forgotten, and On the Backs of Angels they could have done much better on the lyric and Vocals. All of that is made up by their instrumental sections. What really brings it up so high is Breaking all illusions, Bridges in the Sky, and Beneath the Surface. All of them are fantastic throughout in everything. Far from Heaven and This is the Life being good songs but not great.

I'm excited to see what they do with DT12 and I really hope they let Mangini loose and don't hold back on anything and please no BMUBMD or AROP like songs. I'd really like to see an instrumental or an epic on it and I think if they really put everything they got into it the album can easily be top 5 material.

[ricky]

i thought it was a pretty solid album when it first came out, and still think it is. i can't say its gotten worse or better with time for me - it's just a well-crafted, solid DT offering, at least in my opinion.