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

[dparrott]

German Review...
https://powermetal.de/review/review-Dream_Theater/The_Astonishing,27540.html

As far as my German go, I could see three main points:

1. The album is different from others.
2. Labrie is amazing.

Well duh...

[Enigmachine]

Honestly have to say, that the first album by CM is the only one I really checked out, the second one I heard about 9-10 times, maybe. I haven't heard Nine, but I am listening to Last Goodbye now.
What does IIRC mean?

It means "if I remember correctly".

[OleMP]

Dunno if this means anything yet, but they didn't put MoB in the second video slot on the website...

You are correct.  And I know what is there. 

The next Star Wars movie?

[RMGadelha]

It's the album's deleted scenes

[shadow1psc]

Dunno if this means anything yet, but they didn't put MoB in the second video slot on the website...

You are correct.  And I know what is there. 

The next Star Wars movie?

Dunno how I missed this reply, can you give us any info about what will go there?

[Kotowboy]

Dunno how I missed this reply, can you give us any info about what will go there?

Yes !

On January 29.

[Crow]

Man, I wish Rudess would get better patches. His synthstrings still sound awful here.

I'm pretty sure JR said in an interview that he mostly played piano and organ on the album, so when you hear strings, that's an orchestra playing, not JR...

okay, new question

why does the orchestra sound like JR's synthstrings

[RoeDent]

I for one think the last 3 months have flown by! Just thinking back to when all of this started with the distortion of the DT12 album art. We were told that the path will soon divide, and in the corner we got our first small glimpse of a NOMAC. Now, we're just 1 week away from release day! Whilst it's been mildly frustrating on occasion, the promo campaign has been enjoyable. And unpredictable. Who, in October, would have thought we'd end up with a 34-track album? All our perceptions of what a DT album should be were wiped away, week by week.

[mikeyd23]

Man, I wish Rudess would get better patches. His synthstrings still sound awful here.

I'm pretty sure JR said in an interview that he mostly played piano and organ on the album, so when you hear strings, that's an orchestra playing, not JR...

okay, new question

why does the orchestra sound like JR's synthstrings

No clue man, I don't hear it like that, I was just letting you know what I heard in an interview. I think it was the JP/JR Trunk interview.

[MirrorMask]

Whilst it's been mildly frustrating on occasion, the promo campaign has been enjoyable. And unpredictable. Who, in October, would have thought we'd end up with a 34-track album? All our perceptions of what a DT album should be were wiped away, week by week.

That's what I loved the most. Showing the tracklist bit by bit was a clever idea.

First 5 tracks appear.... "Mh, will it be 5 for both acts?"
Tracks double to ten... "Ok, this is it for the first act, maybe 10 songs each? double album then?"
Tracks go to 14 if I remember correctly... "Wow!!! double album for sure! how many of these will be one minute interludes?"

And from then onwards it was just time to call the WTF police and wonder where it all would have led 

[TAC]

Dunno if this means anything yet, but they didn't put MoB in the second video slot on the website...

You are correct.  And I know what is there. 

The next Star Wars movie?

Dunno how I missed this reply, can you give us any info about what will go there?

The second video leaked!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mY9J2Z57Y

[dparrott]

The second video leaked!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mY9J2Z57Y

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Dunno if this means anything yet, but they didn't put MoB in the second video slot on the website...

You are correct.  And I know what is there. 

The next Star Wars movie?

Dunno how I missed this reply, can you give us any info about what will go there?

The second video leaked!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mY9J2Z57Y

I want hear a song about teh river

[Wubbagubba]

Wow, one reviewer states pretty affirmatively TA won't be his top favorite by DT, and another says they've come extremely close to topping SFAM. My hype is reaching new levels.

[Panar]

Why MOB isn't available as a single for purchase?

[paulstfu]

Dunno if this means anything yet, but they didn't put MoB in the second video slot on the website...

You are correct.  And I know what is there. 

The next Star Wars movie?

Dunno how I missed this reply, can you give us any info about what will go there?

The second video leaked!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mY9J2Z57Y

When I clicked the link, my first thought was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

[lovethedrake]

The newest MOB that posted on Youtube has MUCH better quality and sounds just like TGOM which puts my mind at ease.  Although I don't love the song the dynamics and sound are good.   

The beginning is beautiful and the Great Debate part is cool.   Petrucci's solo kicks ass.  Mangini's playing was really being hampered by the low quality versions that first came out.  He sounds good on the high quality version.

The biggest problem of this song is the chorus is just bad and the song just doesn't seem to fit Labrie.   The only time the chorus is kind of serviceable is the part after the solo when they slow it down.     

Glad that the sound quality is still good though.... that was really scaring me.

[Evermind]

I thought the chorus along with the intro and the instrumental parts were the only good things.

[MarkFitDT]

Didn't really like the MOB the first few listens but its really grown on me now and I love it - especially the chorus which is stuck in my head at the moment. Cant wait for the album.

[Lowdz]

Sweet Child O' Mine is widely considered by GNR as a filler and is hated by Slash...

Becomes band's most famous song ever.

As joe Walsh once said of Rocky Mountain Way, "if I'd known I would have to play this song for the rest of my life, I'd have probably written something else" 

[lightbug]

2 things:

1 - Bosk: (in MOB) what would be that riff you mentioned?
2 - Almost any piano sound that I have sounds much better that the piano recorded in The Astonishing. Besides that, the song is amazing!

[chwik]

2 things:

1 - Bosk: (in MOB) what would be that riff you mentioned?
2 - Almost any piano sound that I have sounds much better that the piano recorded in The Astonishing. Besides that, the song is amazing!

Point 2. That's a pretty bold claim - prove it! ;-)

[Kotowboy]

in what universe is 6:00 better than voices?   

Someone else's subjective, valid opinion.

Yup.

[King Postwhore]

I also like 6:00 better than Voices.

[dparrott]

I also like 6:00 better than Voices.

Me too.

[lightbug]

2 things:

1 - Bosk: (in MOB) what would be that riff you mentioned?
2 - Almost any piano sound that I have sounds much better that the piano recorded in The Astonishing. Besides that, the song is amazing!

Point 2. That's a pretty bold claim - prove it! ;-)

haha I'm just saying that the piano sound could be better, maybe is the final mix or something like that, for me sounds very patched, the end of illumination theory sounds better IMHO, what do you think?

[countoftuscany42]

DT just posted on Facebook about a collaborative spotify playlist, checking it out now 

[thosava]

Does the album release fill your thoughts all the time too? Not a single hour goes by without me thinking about the album. The wait is getting pretty hard by now. In one week i'll have listened to the album about 2-3 times, but right now it feels like it's a year away

[MirrorMask]

I've resisted fairly easily so far, but now that it's a week away I'm starting to really want to listen to it. I'm not obsessing over it, but as with every kind of waiting, the more it's about to end the more it's hard... but also sweeter in a sense, hehe!

[Sir Walrus Cauliflower]

Does the album release fill your thoughts all the time too? Not a single hour goes by without me thinking about the album. The wait is getting pretty hard by now. In one week i'll have listened to the album about 2-3 times, but right now it feels like it's a year away

That's all? 

Seriously though, it's very hard to wait. I have been keeping myself busy with some bands I discovered around Christmas and some of the dt stuff I've listened to less though.

[Crow]

i'm not even going to be done with my christmas haul by the time the astonishing comes out so i'm perfectly fine with the wai 

[dparrott]

Does the album release fill your thoughts all the time too? Not a single hour goes by without me thinking about the album. The wait is getting pretty hard by now. In one week i'll have listened to the album about 2-3 times, but right now it feels like it's a year away

For me, waiting for this feels the same as waiting for baseball season to start.  The closer it is, the longer it feels.  6 more days?  Ugh!

[pringkaarwanda]

I love the odd time signature after the first chorus. It's almost dissonant, which is so different it's killer.

The cool thing is, that's actually 4/4 the whole way through, but in "Never leave a man behind", they subdivide it differently. Not sure what the musical term for it is, but the entire verse is in 4/4.

It's Metric Modulation, CMIIW 
Since Mangini era, you can hear a lot of  this metric modulation. And yes, it just like the tempo of the song suddenly change
In Outro Moment of Betrayal (outro that used in trailer) you can hear this metric modulation again. It's still 4/4 with Original tempo but we feel like the tempo is suddenly change 

[Enigmachine]

It's Metric Modulation, CMIIW 
Since Mangini era, you can hear a lot of  this metric modulation. And yes, it just like the tempo of the song suddenly change
In Outro Moment of Betrayal (outro that used in trailer) you can hear this metric modulation again. It's still 4/4 with Original tempo but we feel like the tempo is suddenly change 

It works brilliantly within the song.

[jayvee3]

Am I only one who heard some sort of reference to The Gift of Music in the guitar solo of Moment of Betrayal? That chord transition around 4:19 really sounds like the one around 2:31 of TGOM.

Maybe I am just reading too much into it. 

Actually, I thought this myself when listening just yesterday.

The other one I was racking my brain over, was that the outtro sounded like I had heard something similar before. It dawned on me its very similar to the last couple of seconds of the outtro of the live version of 'Finally Free' from BTFW. Might be pure coincidence, might've been inspired by, might've been a taste of things to come. Either way, while I liked MoB on the first couple of listens, its a grower, and now I think it's fucking amazing