*Official* The Astonishing discussion thread

[Kotowboy]

Can you imagine the tedium if this album was 130 minutes of " This Dying Soul " ?

[bosk1]

There's plenty of heavy guitar on this album. Are people on crack?

Well, not right now.

[Scorpion]

Can you imagine the tedium if this album was 130 minutes of " This Dying Soul " ?

Well, things could always be worse.

Joking aside, I like most of the album and love about one hour of it. So the batting average isn't too bad, but still. It's just exhausting to listen to, I find, and the run of songs between Heaven's Cove and Hymn of a Thousand Voices just runs together too much imho.

That said, songs like Three Days, A New Beginning and Our New World are some of the best that they have written in years. And also I am really glad that they made this album, because it shows that they are - as a band - unafraid of taking risks and regardless of the outcome, that is something that I will always applaud.

[CDrice]

There's plenty of heavy guitar on this album. Are people on crack?

The Hashtonishing

[MirrorMask]

I wonder how a song like Three Days would have been welcomed on a regular DT album. You know, a "standard" DT album like the first two with Mangini, and then a song goes batshit insane with its style and those jazz incursions.

For me, I would have loved it, I wish more bands would have the odd, crazy songs here and there, completely unlikely anything they've ever done.

[RuRoRul]

Can you imagine the tedium if this album was 130 minutes of " This Dying Soul " ?

If they managed to make 130 minutes of music up to the quality of one of their best songs, it would be a pretty good album indeed 

Plus, considering it's been a while since they have done a particularly heavy album, it'd still be a nice bit of variety in DT's discography.

But then of course, disliking that hypothetical album due to it lacking in softer stuff would be completely valid, while it's OK to give people shit for disliking The Astonishing if they find it lacking in the metal side (which is as much a part of DT's history as anything else).

[RuRoRul]

I wonder how a song like Three Days would have been welcomed on a regular DT album. You know, a "standard" DT album like the first two with Mangini, and then a song goes batshit insane with its style and those jazz incursions.

For me, I would have loved it, I wish more bands would have the odd, crazy songs here and there, completely unlikely anything they've ever done.

The song is great but it is hard to see it working as well without having lyrics that are part of a story to really commit to. A random "villain song" on an album of otherwise unrelated songs would definitely be a bit weird, but the random styles of music wouldn't be a problem.

[me7]

There's plenty of heavy guitar on this album. Are people on crack?

But the guitar isn't the loudest entity in the mix and the master isn't brickwalled until the loud guitar obliterates any sonic details from the other instruments. This isn't how DT albums sounded for the past ten years.

[jdprsaga]

Dream Theater really needs to make our new World their next single, make a hopeful video of people helping other people when in despair and this song can easily be a major hit!

[mike099]

There's plenty of heavy guitar on this album. Are people on crack?

The Hashtonishing

Those were the days - smoking hash in the dorm - 1977 rocked

[bosk1]

Dream Theater really needs to make our new World their next single, make a hopeful video of people helping other people when in despair and this song can easily be a major hit!

They aren't planning on releasing any singles from this album.

[Kotowboy]

Dream Theater really needs to make our new World their next single, make a hopeful video of people helping other people when in despair and this song can easily be a major hit!

They aren't planning on releasing any singles from this album.

[jdprsaga]

Dream Theater really needs to make our new World their next single, make a hopeful video of people helping other people when in despair and this song can easily be a major hit!

They aren't planning on releasing any singles from this album.

I know.. but IMO they should

[Prog Snob]

There's plenty of heavy guitar on this album. Are people on crack?

The Hashtonishing

Those were the days - smoking hash in the dorm - 1977 rocked

The Way It Used To Be?

[ariich]

But then of course, disliking that hypothetical album due to it lacking in softer stuff would be completely valid, while it's OK to give people shit for disliking The Astonishing if they find it lacking in the metal side (which is as much a part of DT's history as anything else).

Well no, the problem wouldn't be a lack of softer stuff (I like plenty of albums with no soft songs whatsoever) but everything being the same style. I think that's what Kotow was getting at. I know for a fact that he likes heavy music.

[CDrice]

There's plenty of heavy guitar on this album. Are people on crack?

The Hashtonishing

Those were the days - smoking hash in the dorm - 1977 rocked

Oh yeah! I remember those times, back when I was -13 years old 

[Kotowboy]

You're 26 ?

[Lax]

We are all together but there are clans, from ladyboys to hairy metalheads, next album will be so metal people will complain that it miss subtility, and the next one will be too short and the next one will have too long songs...
I am amazed how much time is spent on trying to justify why TA should be a bad album but we are not talking about bad radio one hit wonders, we are talking about albums that are masterpieces and impossible to listen for mere mortals.
To each their own
I respect thought an album may not be the one for you

[Progmetty]

It seems to be pretty intuitive figuring out which character is singing during a given song.

Well, one instance that comes to mind is "In peace, we gather here today", which Arhys said in response to Nafaryus asking them to carry on with Gabriel's singing in the square event, to which Daryus responds "Don't make him ask again", it plays like "Show us what we've heard so much about? In peace, we gather here today, Don't make him ask again", I imagine a listener without lyrics would be confused for a second.
Arabelle has few lines here and there but I feel like she always comes out of nowhere and it's not easy to figure out it's her instantly.

Some of us here were lucky cause pringkaarwanda transcribed them from the booklet and posted them here.

Did he do that? I thought he just posted the link he got from reddit

I think you're right, he just corrected the mistakes he found on the reddit version. I wouldn't have found it otherwise though; I took the file he posted, converted it to pdf and read while I listened on my first full play through that Friday.

[CDrice]

You're 26 ?

Not yet. I'm still a quarter of a century old.

[Luoto]

So... anyone been to the Catskill Mountains?

[Estiui]

I wonder how can anyone dislike Three Days. Those progressions, those lyrics, that chorus  , that ragtime  , that swing blast beat  My God, the best 4 minutes DT's written for many, many years.

Also, I don't understand those people who want plain metal albums from a progressive band. Actually, what I expect from progressive bands is to mix different kind of musics, to bring unexpected things in their music, to not fit a standard style... well, I enjoy music in general, and I love different kinds of music mixing up, like in Three Days or Lord Nafaryus.

[ariich]

It seems to be pretty intuitive figuring out which character is singing during a given song.

Well, one instance that comes to mind is "In peace, we gather here today", which Arhys said in response to Nafaryus asking them to carry on with Gabriel's singing in the square event, to which Daryus responds "Don't make him ask again", it plays like "Show us what we've heard so much about? In peace, we gather here today, Don't make him ask again", I imagine a listener without lyrics would be confused for a second.
Arabelle has few lines here and there but I feel like she always comes out of nowhere and it's not easy to figure out it's her instantly.

Agreed. Once reading the lyrics through and paying attention, it's easy enough to remember. But it's definitely not that easy to get each line from just listening through.

[Gromit1710]

It seems to be pretty intuitive figuring out which character is singing during a given song.

Well, one instance that comes to mind is "In peace, we gather here today", which Arhys said in response to Nafaryus asking them to carry on with Gabriel's singing in the square event, to which Daryus responds "Don't make him ask again", it plays like "Show us what we've heard so much about? In peace, we gather here today, Don't make him ask again", I imagine a listener without lyrics would be confused for a second.
Arabelle has few lines here and there but I feel like she always comes out of nowhere and it's not easy to figure out it's her instantly.

Agreed. Once reading the lyrics through and paying attention, it's easy enough to remember. But it's definitely not that easy to get each line from just listening through.

Admittedly, as a victim of ITUNES and their "Not gonna give you any artwork" purchase...

I had no freakin clue what was going on in most of the songs until I finally read the transcribed lyrics o.o

Got the general jist, but not the details or the real story.

[jsbru]

I think I disagree, but I want to check what you mean by "middle of Act II". I think the run from Path That Divides through to My Last Farewell is fantastic, both musically and narratively (though the two are of course related). The few songs after that are a bit more middle-of-the-road, but I would have said that's towards the end of the Act.
[/quote]

I was thinking all the way from Heaven's Cove to Whispers on the Wind...it's not as if there's no beautiful passages in that span (there are plenty), but it's more like just a ton of story-telling tracks back-to-back that don't stand out from the rest of the album, or aren't really stand-alone songs either, the way that A New Beginning, A Life Left Behind, Our New World, Moment of Betrayal, Three Days, The Gift of Music, etc. do.  I think just one good stand-alone song in there would made it a little more interesting.

[jsbru]

It seems that most people have disliked the middle of Act II, but that's honestly probably my favorite series of songs.

I wouldn't say that I dislike it...it's just that it gets a little slow.

[jsbru]

It seems to be pretty intuitive figuring out which character is singing during a given song.

I can't really tell when he's changing characters when I'm listening to it.  But I brought it over to my friend's house this weekend, as he and his wife like more clasically-inspired rock music (the are both big Muse fans, but they've always been open to listening to DT, and while they don't go by the albums, they enjoy it when I am over and play it)--and she could tell right away without even knowing much about the plot when James was singing the female versus male lines.  I thought it was amazing, because I being the DT aficionado and being well-versed in the plot, still couldn't tell which character was singing without reading the lyric book.

[RuRoRul]

I read through the booklet lyrics on first listen (annoying as it was given the packaging), which was enough to get the story in one go (apart from a couple of things only described on their site such as Daryus's deafness, exactly what "Bug" is...). Normally the vocals in combination with listening to the lyrics and having a basic understanding of who the characters are is enough to tell who is meant to be speaking, but in some cases the lyric booklet is probably necessary to tell, and there is virtually no way to tell just from the vocals alone, and you need to go by the lyrics. For example, in what I would call the second and third "chorus" of A New Beginning (although the lyrics are different each time), there is little if any difference in the vocals to distinguish between Faythe and Arabelle and then Faythe and Nafaryus. But for most extended sections from one character, it does a good job of making it feel different.

[Progmetty]

I read through the booklet lyrics on first listen (annoying as it was given the packaging), which was enough to get the story in one go (apart from a couple of things only described on their site such as Daryus's deafness, exactly what "Bug" is...).

Yep, these two things and also the mechanics of what the plans were at Heaven's Cove, without the website we don't know why Faythe and Gabriel were to show up there earlier than the time they're supposed to meet the emperor, I got hung up on that for a while. Also that Arhys made sure not to tell Daryus that the emperor has agreed to meet with Gabriel, at the same place on the same night, actually as I typed this I still feel there's a bit of oddness in the whole intersecting plans of Heaven's Cove, so what I can gather from it is that Arhys did not believe Gabriel would manage to convince the emperor of peaceful resolve and so he thought he'd at least get something back from Gabriel's death by doing the trade off with Daryus.. does that sound right?
One thing not even explained in the website is whether or not Xander was kidnapped, the lyrics clearly state that he followed his father to Heaven's Cove so why was he worried about his life? And why did Daryus threaten him with his son's life? The only answer I can think of is that Arhys never had much faith in the outcome of the entire empire/rebels conflict and thought if push comes to shove Xander will die because the rebels will be defeated and Ravenskill will burn.. dunno.
EDIT: None of this seems characteristic of Arhys, that's another reason why it seems odd.

[TAC]

Also, didn't Gabriel say the Noise Machines would be quiet that night, yet they appear right after The Path That Divides.

[MirrorMask]

If I remember correctly I had this approach:

First listening: read the lyrics
Second listening: focused only on the music
Third listening: read the lyrics again
Fourth listening: reading not the lyrics but the song descriptions of the site.

That gave me quite a good understanding, then for all the little details there's this forum 

[RoeDent]

The last vocal passage in A New Beginning is one where the character changes midway through the verse, and it's not immediately obvious unless you read the lyric book and get used to the idea.

Faythe: Now you understand why I was hiding...
Nafaryus: I will grant the chance for a new beginning...

[Progmetty]

If I remember correctly I had this approach:

First listening: read the lyrics
Second listening: focused only on the music
Third listening: read the lyrics again
Fourth listening: reading not the lyrics but the song descriptions of the site.

That gave me quite a good understanding, then for all the little details there's this forum 

That's the perfect approach IMO, only I reversed your second and third steps cause I'm a sucker for concept albums, mainly for seeing the craft that comes out of a talented song writer trying to put a lengthy story with details into music form.

Also, didn't Gabriel say the Noise Machines would be quiet that night, yet they appear right after The Path That Divides.

YES! Not just after The Path That Divides but they can also be clearly heard at the beginning of that very song! that's one thing I forgot to mention up there; why did he say the NOMAC's were "laying still"? the emperor didn't agree to that when he agreed to meet Gabriel, but also it contradicts what I felt was the whole point of going to Heaven's Cove which is to be away from the NOMAC's sounds and influence, which-stay with me here- brings us to the big elephant in the room; the nature and patterns of the NOMAC's presence, are they patrolling or are they always around? The scenes from the trailer drives me to believe there is hundreds, if not thousands, of them, so they don't take breaks or go in for maintenance or generally be in any situation where they're simply off.
Maybe they only patrol populated places and that's why Heaven's Cove was perfect for the meeting, but then Gabriel saying they "the noise machines lie still tonight" doesn't make sense.
Look at this.. DT you bring out the nerd in my soul

[Jinx]

Is anyone else interested to see how the band will pull off all the added instruments/orchestra and choir parts?

[Kotowboy]

Is anyone else interested to see how the band will pull off all the added instruments/orchestra and choir parts?

• Play to a click track.

• Play the tracks over the PA.