Dream Theater: The Astonishing (now with moment of betrayal!)

[bosk1]

My brother Daryus is all the strength we neeeeeeed
Crushing the rebellion like woooooorms!
General of our Empire, A man who inspires!
Death is the gift he brings, the rebels crap their pants when he siiiiiings!

At first, I was like,   Then I was still like,   But then I thought about it for awhile to let it really sink in, and I was like,

[RMGadelha]

My brother Daryus is all the strength we neeeeeeed
Crushing the rebellion like woooooorms!
General of our Empire, A man who inspires!
Death is the gift he brings, the rebels crap their pants when he siiiiiings!

At first, I was like,   Then I was still like,   But then I thought about it for awhile to let it really sink in, and I was like,

Was it too Evil or too ridiculous? Or both of them at once? Because I like both evil and ridiculous, hahaha.

[TAC]

My brother Daryus is all the strength we neeeeeeed
Crushing the rebellion like woooooorms!
General of our Empire, A man who inspires!
Death is the gift he brings, the rebels crap their pants when he siiiiiings!

At first, I was like,   Then I was still like,   But then I thought about it for awhile to let it really sink in, and I was like,

Now that is some high quality moderating!

[GandL]

Of course any DT album will have some metal on it, just as any DT album has pop, prog and melodic rock. It's just a matter of how much of each "ingredient" is there. Falling Into Infinity and a big portion of Scenes From A Memory are much more rooted in the "melodic rock" and "pop" section than stuff like Systematic Chaos or Black Clouds which are very metal-focused albums.

The Astonishing, being a rock opera written specifically with that in mind, is more concerned with telling a story. And it's a story about relationships and conflict. The music is the emotion. So, there's a very wide array of songs, and very wide array of styles both between songs and within the songs. But the thing is, there's 34 songs. Whereas shorter albums have maybe one or two pop ballads, this will have many more. But it will also have many more rock songs and prog songs and metal songs. But of course, the people who are "just" into the metal part of DT will frown at the melodic songs on this one. Just like the fans of Awake frowned at Falling Into Infinity when it came out.

But this is the first time in 10 years I've really felt that DT has -changed-. SC, BCSL, ADTOE and S/T all were quite different albums, but they were also very much just evolutions of the stuff that came before. Not the paradigm shifts you had between awake and fii to sfam to sdoit to tot to 8v.

Now I'm even more hypped, and I still can't believe that I got tickets for that happening for which my wife agreed and be pleased to join me.

Gandl, I too may have my wife join me at the Cincy concert.  Just curious, how much does your wife like DT?  My wife likes some of the songs on the last two cds.  Hopefully she will like the concert.  However, she has been told that she is plan B.  Plan A is one of my guy friends that really likes DT.  If she goes I will have to take her to Ikea north of Cincinnati.

Not her favorite band but she likes them since Image and Words when we discovered them on the local radio with Pull me Under and Learning to Live. She doesn't like them when they play too long without singing lol ! We saw them togheter in 1993 at The Club Soda in Montreal and then in 2007 for Chaos in Motion, when they played also Octavarium, and finally in 2010 in first part of Iron Maiden when suddenly they lost power to the consoles and had to reboot everything, meanwhile Portnoy did play a drum solo to entertain everyone while there was no sound, glorious...

Now she may not be able to make it, she might work, so if she's not coming it will be our youngest daughter that will come with me. She is 19 and a great fan and like them a lot more than my wife. She's praying that my wife will be working ah! ah! ....

[jayvee3]

A higher res map would be nice... looking at it this morning, I thought it said 'Sandy Crack' there for a second..... Alas, it was 'Sandy Creek'... 

[RMGadelha]

A higher res map would be nice... looking at it this morning, I thought it said 'Sandy Crack' there for a second..... Alas, it was 'Sandy Creek'... 

[Prog Snob]

My brother Daryus is all the strength we neeeeeeed
Crushing the rebellion like woooooorms!
General of our Empire, A man who inspires!
Death is the gift he brings, the rebels crap their pants when he siiiiiings!

At first, I was like,   Then I was still like,   But then I thought about it for awhile to let it really sink in, and I was like,

Now that is some high quality moderating!

The Steven Seagal of moderators.

[lucasembarbosa]

A child or a woman, and possibly an elder woman. Looks like very short hair, small petite neck and narrow shoulders.

Still waiting for confirmation of teeth 

Clock Guy's neck is really strange and out of proportion, I think it's a braid around the left shoulder and Clock Guy is after all CLOCK GIRL, a.k.a. Faythe... Or it's Megamind.   

[Bertielee]

A child or a woman, and possibly an elder woman. Looks like very short hair, small petite neck and narrow shoulders.

Still waiting for confirmation of teeth 

Clock Guy's neck is really strange and out of proportion, I think it's a braid around the left shoulder and Clock Guy is after all CLOCK GIRL, a.k.a. Faythe... Or it's Megamind.   

If I remember it well, Faythe is Arhys's wife and I can't imagine this creature of  strange proportions to be his wife. But we never know...

B.Lee

[EraVulgaris]

2. What if Clock Guy is Marhys, father of Arhys and Gabriel? I know that will mean it will be 5 RRMs vs 3 GNEs, but it might be that.

M'arhys 

[lightbug]

obviously clock guy is a female, i can't believe people keep insisting the opposite.

check this picture:



my guess: she is faythe (ravenskill)

[EraVulgaris]

obviously clock guy is a female, i can't believe people keep insisting the opposite.

check this picture

I can't see clock guy / girl though. Or am I missing something? I see a little of the left side of the body and an arm, but that doesn't scream "female!" to me.

Edit: At a closer look, that could be a boob.

[lightbug]

obviously clock guy is a female, i can't believe people keep insisting the opposite.

check this picture

I can't see clock guy / girl though. Or am I missing something? I see a little of the left side of the body and an arm, but that doesn't scream "female!" to me.

Edit: At a closer look, that could be a boob.

the arm is (to me) clearly from a woman, the cloth, the pose... if not, that "man" is probably the barber or stylist of gabriel 

maybe this theme deserves a separated thread or a poll 

[noxon]

Could be a kid.

[lightbug]

Could be a kid.

yes, I considered that.

[hefdaddy42]

My brother Daryus is all the strength we neeeeeeed
Crushing the rebellion like woooooorms!
General of our Empire, A man who inspires!
Death is the gift he brings, the rebels crap their pants when he siiiiiings!

At first, I was like,   Then I was still like,   But then I thought about it for awhile to let it really sink in, and I was like,

Now that is some high quality moderating!

The Steven Seagal of moderators.

So what am I?

[bosk1]

Chuck Norris.

[King Postwhore]

George The Animal Steele.

[hefdaddy42]

I feel like Schrodinger's Mod.

[ResultsMayVary]

Kinda bummed about the possibility of no new track before the release :/

We're at just under five weeks to release, so it's not like it'll be 2-3 months like other DT releases. Plus we apparently have two videos to be released at some point, so who knows what'll happen.

[Bertielee]

Could be a kid.

[YtseJohn]

Yes, but 3 years ago we were still 3 years away from the release date.

[RMGadelha]

Are we still discussing which one of the pictures is Faythe? Because I thought this other picture from the store made it pretty clear that Faythe's clothes are different from the clock person.

[Prog Snob]

I feel like Schrodinger's Mod.

Except you're trapped in a NOMAC, not a box.

[wolven74]

I feel like Schrodinger's Mod.

Except you're trapped in a NOMAC, not a box.

Trapped in an OCTA-VARI-UM.... pt 2

FTFY 

[Jamesman42]

Any modern DT album with less metal is a good thing.

[ResultsMayVary]

Any modern DT album with less metal is a good thing.

Less metal and less compression, please!

[RMGadelha]

I don't think that less metal is necessarily the best thing. I think the best thing is the variety we've been reading about.

[wolven74]

I think it'll be fantastic if the music on TA is less in your face, quieter if you will. If we can get a comfortable mix of heavy and mellow tracks--say, somewhere between 8VM and DT12, leaning more towards 8VM--then I think we've found the perfect DT album.

[MirrorMask]

Well, depends on what kind of metal we're talking about. I love heavy stuff and I love DT's heavy stuff, but especially the early heavy stuff, like Awake... that's the kind of heavy DT I'm crazy about. In later albums the metal has been present, not always, in a more extreme, "riff riff chugga chugga wha wha wha dldldldldfastsolofastsolodldldldl hey James sings like you're Hetfield" kind of way I'm not really fond of.  But like has been said before, I'm most excited about the variety of the new album!

[fadetoblackdude7]

I think it'll be fantastic if the music on TA is less in your face, quieter if you will. If we can get a comfortable mix of heavy and mellow tracks--say, somewhere between 8VM and DT12, leaning more towards 8VM--then I think we've found the perfect DT album.

Like SFAM?

[noxon]

Well, then boy are you in for a treat!

[ResultsMayVary]

Noxon being prior-to-album-release Noxon.

[noxon]

Well, let me state it through the words of my partner (common law wife), who has had to endure my fandom of DT since before we even met 16 years go. And lately, a certain something has been spinning when we drive somewhere.

"I like this, it reminds me of Scenes From A Memory, because it's not so noisy and busy all the time"

My daughter suddenly asked me for the name of one of the tracks cause she wanted to find it on the Apple Music app (she's normally into whatever 9 year old girls are into).


Conclusion: 2 out of 2 female listeners like it.

[me7]

Conclusion: 2 out of 2 female listeners like it.

...so, DT abandoned prog altogether