Does anyone like the AA saga in its entirety?

[El JoNNo]

Barring minor grievances like you don't much care for a solo or a minute of a song. My break down is.

The Glass Prison - Love it
This Dying Soul - Love it until about the 6 minute mark where the rapping begins and then the song is just ruined.
The Root of All Evil - Love it
Repentance - Very boring song
The Shattered Fortress - It's shatter indeed, it's so cluttered.

Honorable mention
The Mirror - Fucking love it.

Based on this breakdown as a whole I would have to say I don't like the AA saga. Is there anyone that loves it as a whole.
 

[Cable]

I absolutely enjoy the entire thing. I made one long track, complete with me splicing the instrumental only TSF intro to the vocal TSF for a full volume transition from Repentance.

TDS is my least favorite, and TROAE carries the best vocal melodies IMO. I do enjoy TSF alone and together,  but I appear to be the in the minority. I think w/o Repentance, the suite would be too relentles

[Scorpion]

Yeah, me. All of them are great tracks, with Repentance being my favourite (not counting The Mirror).

[Jaffa]

Well, I enjoy all Dream Theater songs, so I'm probably the wrong person to ask, but yet, I do enjoy the whole AA Suite.  I don't LOVE all parts of it, but. 

[Nekov]

TROAE and This Dying soul are the weak links in my opinion. I really like all the rest

[bosk1]

My take on the individual songs based on some slight editing of El Jonno's:

Barring minor grievances like you don't much care for a solo or a minute of a song. My break down is.

The Glass Prison - Love it
This Dying Soul - Love it until about the 6 minute mark where the rapping begins and then the song is just ruined. other than the Blackened part, because it just seems silly.
The Root of All Evil - Love it
Repentance - Very boring song  Great song, but just overstays its welcome and becomes monotonous by the end.
The Shattered Fortress - It's shatter indeed, it's so cluttered.  Mostly love it, but it really could have been bettered by some trimming.

Taken as a whole, the suite is exhausting, but very good.  And in context of the whole thing, the flaws above are less glaring.

[KevShmev]

I don't dislike any of the songs per se (although neither This Dying Soul nor The Root of All Evil are favorites), but listening to the whole thing straight through would be awfully tedious.  I am glad it was never played live as a whole, 'cause that would be reallllllllllllly tedious.

[Phoenix87x]

The Glass Prison - Love it
This Dying Soul - Love it
The Root of All Evil - really like it a lot
Repentance - Don't like it
The Shattered Fortress - Don't like it

[Ben_Jamin]

I really enjoy it. I also have a version where I transitioned them.

[Ħ]

Yeah, it's one of the best things DT has done.

[theseoafs]

DT's great failed experiment, I call it.  I agree with MP in that it probably should have just been one song with all 12 steps.

As it stands, I found the saga grew worse with each successive song.  TGP is a favorite of mine, and TDS and TROAE are great too.  Repentance is fine but could have used some trimming; TSF is an utter mess.

[krands85]

The first 3 tracks are awesome. I've never really cared for Reptenance. I was disappointed with TSF at first, but it has grown on me a fair bit.

[Elite]

As a whole; no.

The Glass Prison is okay, but nothing more.
This Dying Soul is not good.
The Root of All Evil is brilliant.
Repentance is quite boring, but all-right I suppose.
The Shattered Fortress is complete bollocks.

So there. The songs themselves aren't exactly that bad, but as a whole it's pretty boring. HOWEVER, I'd like to see them perform it in full, without ANY breaks. That is, making every song connect to the next. It could potentially be very good that way.

[Grinch]

I must say I don't like it as a whole but I do like individual parts, I tried listening to it as a whole last year and I couldn't stand it. And I do agree with the speaker above, the saga did get worse with each successive song. The Glass Prison is one of my all time favourite songs as well as This Dying Soul, The Roof of All Evil is a song that I like and there's absolutely nothing I don't like about it, however there isn't anything I particularly like about it. Repentance is just far too long and boring, usually a 10 minute long DT song makes time pass faster for me, it feels like 5 minutes, but Repentance is just flat-out boring. The Shattered Fortress is a song that I feel could have been something great but they sorta screwed it up, however there is one section that I'm particularly fond of and that is the clean section at around the 7 minute mark, the rest of the song is just meh for me. So essentially I find that the AA saga has it's moments but it is nowhere near perfect, for it to be perfect, in my opinion, it would have needed to be like five A Change of Seasons in terms of epicness.

[The Letter M]

I love it so much that I've made it into it's own album, making unique cross-fades and mixes that combine the 5 songs into one seamless suite, even going so far as to creating a new intro for "The Shattered Fortress" that works well as a bridge between it and "Repentance".

It's a great suite, and IMO, one of the best things that DT has done. I wish that the band and/or MP would have remixed the tracks and released the suite as a studio CD after BC&SL was released.

Also, for those interested, I will run Twelve-Step Suite Movements and Twelve-Step Suite Songs Survivors in a couple of weeks!

Note - MP himself has said he dislikes the suite being titled the "AA Saga" or the "AA Suite", since the Twelve Steps themselves aren't entirely bounded to Alcoholics Anonymous, so he prefers the title of "Twelve-Step Suite".

-Marc.

[Pols Voice]

The Glass Prison - Awesome
This Dying Soul - Very good
The Root of All Evil - Good
Repentance - Really good first half, okay second half
The Shattered Fortress - Mediocre

So...no. It was getting pretty tired by the end there.

[Madman Shepherd]

Nope.  Shattered Fortress kinda sucks.  I can't say that about many DT songs but I don't really like anything about this.  Even the callbacks to other songs seem cheap.

Glass Prison - Love it.  Took me a while to get into it though (like, years)
This Dying Soul - Love it. Again it took me a looooong time to get into it.  I always loved the heavy riffs but not so much thrash elements of DT but this finally grew on me
Root of All Evil - Absolutely love it!  Loved it from the moment I heard it and still think it is the highlight of the suite
Repentance - Love it.  It's slow and a bit drawn out but that is also one of its charms.  I'm not often in the mood to listen to it but it's quite a trip when I do.
Shattered Fortress - Huge let down.  I've maybe listened to this song all the way through, say, 6 times or so.  I just cannot get into how cluttered it is.  It really seemed rushed.  I also don't really like MP's grunty yell where he says stuff like, "HAPPINESSSSSSS!!!!!"  Almost laughable really. 

I guess 4 out of 5 ain't bad. 

[Dacling]

I love the entire thing. I listen to it occasionally. Let's say I like it enough that I spent the time to make four tracks. One with just the album versions. The same thing but with the mirror at the begging. One with the live version of This Dying Soul from Budokan and The Root of All Evil from Score. Last is the same as the last one but with The Mirror from Live Scenes from New York.

[Elite]

There's a version on Youtube, which I won't post here, that links all the songs in quite a good way.

[54_diplomats]

The Glass Prison - One of the first DT songs I listened to. Amazing and top 20 for sure.
This Dying Soul - Another great song with a phenomenal chorus.
The Root of All Evil - My favorite part of the AA suite. Simply breathtaking and the chorus has so much emotion in it.
Repentance - My least favorite. It's not bad, but no great either.
The Shattered Fortress - I absolutely loved this song when the album came out. As time went on I started liking it a little less. I still think its good, but it has its flaws. INVENTORY!

In short TROAE>TGP>TDS>>>TSF>Repentance

[Adami]

No.

[Jamariquay]

When Black Clouds first came out, and I was able to make my own personal Twelve Step Suite in audacity, I listened to it a whole bunch. Novelty and whatnot, it was pretty cool to hear how all the songs fit together, and anything from BCSL still had that "new album" sheen on it.

Lately? Not as much, I tend to zone out midway through This Dying Soul. Not that crazy about The Shattered Fortress anyway, but honestly I rarely make it that far in the first place.

I like all the songs individually well enough. I think it's moreso that I can't really listen to 55 consecutive minutes of metalmetalmetal(naptime!)metalmetal in any context, which is probably also why I almost never listen to Train Of Thought all the way through either.

[senecadawg2]

it's okay...

[hefdaddy42]

Yeah, I like all of it.

[TheGreatPretender]

I really wish they flowed one into the other a little better, especially the last three. But either way, I still like it. I think The Shattered Fortress is an awesome ending to the entire saga.

[Unlegit]

The Glass Prison - Second to only This Dying Soul. It's a great start to the saga.
This Dying Soul - Best song of the saga IMO. Definitely an amazing follow up to an already great song.
The Root of All Evil - Not bad, but not great either. It seems too much like a forced song to me.
Repentance - *snore*
The Shattered Fortress - Great wrap up to the saga, wish it contained a bit more original compositions but the amount of "flashbacks" were good.

[rumborak]

I always thought there was some message from God that DT didn't perform the thing.
I dunno. It started out as a cool idea, but at some point the beaten horse was put on life support so MP could beat it for two more albums. That the same guy once had accused KM of "contrived sincerity" was the pinnacle of irony.

[Adami]

I think one of the problems with the AA suite is that only one song is under 10 minutes, right?

I mean the songs TGP, TDS and TSF are filled with so many almost pointless and unrelated solo and instrumental sections that the suite as a whole just becomes a major chore.

The only songs that seem truly focused are TRoAE and Repentance, the rest are just kind of typical DT metal songs without any point musically.

[rumborak]

There was of course that element of MP trying to create his personal Magnum Opus with it. Problem was that it was soon overcome by triteness.

[Ħ]

There was of course that element of MP trying to create his personal Magnum Opus with it. Problem was that it was soon overcome by triteness.

He never expressly vocalized that as his intent but, yeah, you can tell that's what he was going for. Really, the first three songs in the suite are terrific, the fourth has that darned second half, and the fifth is like wtf.

[rumborak]

He has this weird thing with continuity anyway. Like, the AAA suite as mentioned, the contrived drum puns for his DVDs, the DT logo and the collage style for the album covers... even just for that aspect it was good for DT to split with him, just to part with some of those traditions.

[Ħ]

But in many ways, every song playing into a bigger picture was very appealing to me as a new DT fan. It compelled me to listen to all their material, to catch as many inter-song references as possible. The Shattered Fortress was just too over the top with that.

[rumborak]

It all could have worked had he known when to stop. Had he done 3 songs, and maybe even left some of the last steps uncovered (which would have been an insightful message to push) it would have been a marvelous trilogy.
Another thing that killed it for me were those insincere apologies in Repentance. I guess understandable that none of those guys wanted to spill a dark secret of theirs on some dude's album, but it kinda emphasized the farce the whole thing had become.

[Ħ]

Oh, I just meant in general, I like how many DT songs reference others, not limited to the AA suite.

[BlobVanDam]

Of course I like the 12SS. It actually works very well as a whole suite, even TSF.