i agree with pretty much everything you said. what's weird though is that while I sit here listening to it for maybe the thousandth time, I can't help but hear kev in alot of places. he brought this rich, atmospheric element to DT's music as well as simple, yet direct melodies. i get subtle hints of those characteristics all through this album, in a number of places. i just feel like he contributed more to the music than we give him credit for.
In the LiT/5YiaLT commentary, Portnoy notes that KM worked a lot on 6:00, Lie, and SDV, the songs that he wrote lyrics for. JP also adds that he put a bit of work into Voices too.
As for Awake, three thoughts:
- Yeah, the lack of any stinkers really helps it. Listening to an album as a whole, any bad moment puts a bad taste in the experience as a whole. The stuff beforehand is less good because it leads into something bad, and the stuff afterward is less good because it comes from something bad. An album isn't a collection of songs, it's a cohesive experience. Awake is by far the most consistently good.
- RW pointed out that Awake has a lot of "grey," which I think is a good point. It's
by far the most subtle DT album in terms of how it's designed. For instance, I absolutely love the ending of Octavarium, it's one of the best DT moments ever, but I don't think a piece of music can more obviously say "THIS IS AN EPIC MOMENT, YOU SHOULD BE OVERWHELMED BY IT!" Awake never ever makes anything too obvious. The ending string section of Scarred is pretty epic, but there's some mildly complex guitar stuff going on under it. The Mirror is very tortured and regretful, but it's tempered by the groovy metal and the spaceiness of it. This also leads to:
- Awake is the most complex DT album in terms of emotional dimension. Not only does it never beat you over the head with a theme or idea, it juggles multiple themes and ideas at one time virtually all the time. I'm not saying modern DT has never done this. A lot of Octavarium is complex, TMOLS is overtly sad/mournful yet brings a lot of angles into it, Forsaken (I'm being serious) even has some dimension. But Awake is consistently multidimensional, and I don't see how moments like SUCKING ON HIS PIPE even begin to compare.
- Awake has the best lyrics of any DT album.
- A lot of people say Awake has no really big moments, but I don't see how that's the case, although I realize taste comes into play here. Scarred is one of DT's top three songs. The Mirror/Lie is a ridiculous one/two combo. Lifting Shadows is one of the few really romantic songs in the DT catalog, with some great and subtle playing from the band. Voices is also incredible as a song. Space Dye-Vest is wonderfully weird and dark, and so on.
When it comes down to the question of "Which DT album would I most want to sit down and listen to in its entirety?" No other album is as satisfying as Awake. Although I&W is a legitimate second place.