I for one love this album. I feel that Dream Theater remade the same damn album template over and over post-Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, bar the straight metal album Train of Thought (which I find hard to stick with for all its runtime), to the point they became a very formulaic band, who would only create the odd classic like Count of Tuscany which kept me hooked, so it's great seeing them attempt something outside their comfort zone for the first time in a long while.
First listen it was overwhelming, but subsequent visits show just how much is going on here. The story is simplistic, the lyrics matter of fact and the pacing off, but damn the music is great, and James LaBrie has not been so nuanced a performer since Awake. For a while the other members had to carry him due to his voice problems, but here he is the MVP foundation of the thing and stands up to the task perfectly. Adore his singing here.
As with Awake (to my mind the band's finest album), this is too idiosyncratic and unexpected to grab everybody – especially as it isn't really a prog, or arguably even metal, album. It's a rock opera, and a highly listenable one at that. A flawed album for sure, but it's their best since Six Degrees and has entered my top five, along with Images and Words, Awake, Scenes from a Memory and Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. I think it may just top Six Degrees, though my top three are unbeatable classics.
I think the much maligned 'music player' part is wonderful, by the way.