What kind of album would you like DT14 to be?

[Dublagent66]

What point?  That you wish DT would put out another album like TA just to spite the majority of fans that don't like it?

[Mosh]

I'd love an album exactly like The Astonishing for all of those who act like it was "obviously" the worst album by the band.

For all of us that loved it - we'd be quite happy thanks.

Horrible reason to make an album.

I wish they would do the opposite: never mind what the fans think or any obligation to make a "core" DT album. No preconceived directions, just write what comes naturally. Every DT album since signing to RR has felt extremely contrived. Sometimes it works for them, but a lot of it comes off forced.

[Pragmaticcircus]

I wish they'd return to the spirit (not style) of albums like Awake, SFAM and SDOIT, where they where trying to push their ideas as far as they could take them. On the first disk of SDOIT they where "experimenting" with different kinds of underlying atmospheres they could fit into their traditional band setup and gave each song room to breath. Awake was dark and very musically fluid, they where drawing from many places but the where consistent and effective in how it manifested, it was also a really dark and personal record. SFAM was an exercise in building 75 minutes of music around a bunch of simple themes and melodies, which led them to quite unusual and dissonant riffs (as hinted in Metropolis pt 1), I wish they would mix it up more like on that record; you got simple chordal writing, higher register riffs, highly chromatic instrumental sections, a larger sense of structure in which instrumental sections form an extension of previously referenced motifs, a constant sense of pacing (continually developing story) and a playfulness of styles (as seen in beyond this life and TDOE).

DT COULD do it again but I don't feel as though they're in the mindset to take a step back and think about things from a broader perspective again.

[LCArenas]

wewell seeing that they released the astonishing as a prog rock album but in the more melodic side, without much of the prog elements i wish they would delve into the more prog side this time. thughto be honest i think there is a better chance that they release a heavy album sinc ehtye havent done it in a long time (Is bc%sl a heavy albym???) a good train of thought II would be a good idea but that was mostly mike portnoy's idea so i don't think it's that possible but i still have hope. JLB's voals in 'IN THE NAME OF GOD' are amazing and I wish he would repeat it more often. I understiand him though it's not easy to kkepp the same vocal proweess along the years


so as a matter of conclusion i think the best thing is that they release whatever they feel to release. rest assured itll be good. i guarantee it. If i Had to pick an album as 'the next X' that they would release I feel SDOIT would be a good album to repeat.

[MirrorMask]

Well, for sure I would call Black Clouds heavy, obviously it's not heavy from start to finish but you can't say it has not many heavy elements.

[ariich]

The poll options don't really make sense to me. I see SDOIT and Awake as heavier than SC, and for some reason the two-disc rock opera is under "melodic" rather than "prog".

But anyway, I'm potentially in something heavier this time, but I don't mean DT12 which I know some people see as heavy but I really didn't bar a couple of songs. Something more concise and crunchy all round, but obviously still in balance like all their albums are.

[Renzo]

The poll options don't really make sense to me. I see SDOIT and Awake as heavier than SC, and for some reason the two-disc rock opera is under "melodic" rather than "prog".

I was unsure whether to put Awake on Progressive or Heavy, you're right about being it heavier than SC. I think I would have inverted them but I've put Awake on progressive because of the huge variety of songs. On SC I just considered songs like TDEN and CM as the 'heavy' songs which make the album 'heavy' without considering that this is the same album of Repentance and TMOLS, so my bad! 

Speaking of TA I think that the fact this album has a lot of ballads, this makes the album more focused on the 'melodic side' of DT.

[gzarruk]

I still don't get why many fans ask for another TOT. I mean, they're going to make a heavier album for DT14, and I love it, but why should they make a "let's just write heavy songs just for the sake of writing heavy songs"kind of album? TOT has great songs, but if you analyze the album as a whole, it lacks balance, imo. There's a lot of fast, heavy songs and only one soft/melodic song (two, if you count the first part of ES).

About the experimentation they had on previous albums, I completely agree, a more experimental/broader album would be perfect.

[wrighty]

For me, the 'Golden Age' of DT is SFAM to 8V, so I'd like to see a return to something like one of them.  I don't think SFAM can be reproduced, so perhaps for DT14 something like Octavarium?

[gzarruk]

For me, the 'Golden Age' of DT is SFAM to 8V, so I'd like to see a return to something like one of them.  I don't think SFAM can be reproduced, so perhaps for DT14 something like Octavarium?

I find OVM to be extremely overrate, so I don't want another album like that 

[JaceTestify]

Maybe so, but I still hold that, 8VRM and TOT merged together would make an amazing album...

[Pragmaticcircus]

Maybe so, but I still hold that, 8VRM and TOT merged together would make an amazing album...

Not a bad idea actually! 

A bunch of heavy downtuned songs combined with more epic and neo-progish influenced tracks..interesting!

[gzarruk]

Maybe so, but I still hold that, 8VRM and TOT merged together would make an amazing album...

Not a bad idea actually! 

A bunch of heavy downtuned songs combined with more epic and neo-progish influenced tracks..interesting!

That would work

[wolfking]

Don't prove my point or anything.

What is your point?  The band should purposely go out of their way to alienate a large chunk of their fans and hurt their career?  Makes sense, and seems like a smart thing for the band to do.........

[BanksD]

I definitely would like to see something that's a bit of a change of pace from a compositional standpoint. Of course I don't expect them to go back to the level of experimentation of 6DOIT or SFAM, but it would nice to see them break their current mold some. However if there's one thing I feel like I can rely on DT to do is to do what they want to do, which is quite respectable.

[jakepriest]

Two 20+ minute epics and one shorter rocker + two ballads in the vein of Transatlantic would be pretty fun to see from DT.

[gzarruk]

Two 20+ minute epics and one shorter rocker + two ballads in the vein of Transatlantic would be pretty fun to see from DT.

They kinda already did that with Black Clouds

[Zook]

How about 'A Change Of Seasons', 'Octavarium', 'Learning To Live', 'Pull Me Under' and 'The Glass Prison'... all on one album.

[Adami]

How about 'A Change Of Seasons', 'Octavarium', 'Learning To Live', 'Pull Me Under' and 'The Glass Prison'... all on one album.

Well.....that would definitely be a silver lining.

[gzarruk]

How about 'A Change Of Seasons', 'Octavarium', 'Learning To Live', 'Pull Me Under' and 'The Glass Prison'... all on one album.

And it was the biggest disappointment 

[Bertie_Wooster]

I would like to hear some sloppy playing from JP. Kind of
Like "stone in love" by Journey.   Go with a vintage sound like Neal Schon
Or Tom Scholz from Boston.   Try to get Nuno Bettencourt' Guitar sound
From  both "III sides to every story" and "waiting for the punchline"

[Dublagent66]

Don't prove my point or anything.

What is your point?  The band should purposely go out of their way to alienate a large chunk of their fans and hurt their career?  Makes sense, and seems like a smart thing for the band to do.........

Yeah, I know.  Why would they want to do that......again?

How about 'A Change Of Seasons', 'Octavarium', 'Learning To Live', 'Pull Me Under' and 'The Glass Prison'... all on one album.

And it was the biggest disappointment 

Not in this lifetime or any other for that matter.

[Chino]

I'd be completely content with a dozen ballads and a 12 minute instrumental.

[mikeyd23]

How about 'A Change Of Seasons', 'Octavarium', 'Learning To Live', 'Pull Me Under' and 'The Glass Prison'... all on one album.

And it was the biggest disappointment 

Not in this lifetime or any other for that matter.

Huh? You thought BC&SL lived up to that hype? I certainly didn't 

[Dublagent66]

I didn't say anything about BC&SL.  Where did you get that from?   

[gzarruk]

I didn't say anything about BC&SL.  Where did you get that from?   

That's what MP used to describe it, and, no, it didn't live up to the hype at all 

[mikeyd23]

I didn't say anything about BC&SL.  Where did you get that from?   

Because that's what the conversation was about...?

MP teased BC&SL before the album was released as an album having ACOS, 8V, LtL, PMU, and TGP all on the same album.

[Dublagent66]

Well, he was just teasing. 

[ToT-147]

Amazingly for me, the result was even better than what those 5 songs already were..

[ariich]

Nothing could have lived up to that ridiculous hype, obviously. But I thought, and still do, that BCSL was a solid album.

[MirrorMask]

Am I the only one who took that as a description of the album and nothing else? like, "here's an album with two epics, one heavier like ACOS and one more proggy like Octavarium, of course there will be the last song of the 12 Steps and we'll have a catchy song and a proggy one", not literally "OMG we'll have songs awesome exactly like those!!!!!!"

[SeRoX]

Upps wrong thread...

[mikeyd23]

Well, he was just teasing. 

Ummm, okay... That wasn't really the point, you didn't seem to get the reference, so I was just explaining it to you.

[Dublagent66]

I got it.  My point is, don't believe the hype and you won't be disappointed.  Regardless of what MP said, BC&SL wasn't a disappointment.

[bosk1]

I feel it was a disappointment, BOTH because it did not live up to the hype, AND independently because it just wasn't as good as most other DT albums.  It was still a good album.  But to me, it wasn't up to par with the standards they had set.