First band's release I got into was Octavarium, alghout I've known the band since 2002. Thought the Self titled and specially The Astonishig were weak albums and kinda lost interest for DT. I'm really happy that D/T changed that, being their strongest release since 8V, when I heard Wit's End and Pale Blue Dot I knew this was an instant classic. The first 3 to 4 minutes of these two songs are so diverse and surprising, without that feeling they're chopping parts (like I feel it happens on Breaking All Illusions), it flows really well.
Probably the best sounding album of the Mangini Era but still far from gems like Scenes, 6doit and Octavarium. I think the vocals are somewhat strange, like they don't fit the particular sound they were aiming at with the other instruments. It's kinda pale and muddy. And finally the rythm session is really clear and audible without the need to mess with the equalizer even on low volumes. I loved Myung's tone in this one, so clear and heavy at the same time.
Besides the wierd vocal mix, overall James is killing in this album, I really think the more he stays into his mid tone range for an ocasional trip on higher notes the better, I'm not a fan of his timbre when doing high notes, his voice tends to get quite ducky. Mangini kills it, it shows how different his style is in the sense that he's trying to fill the drummer role and stick more with Myung on the rythm session, instead of the more front-man music-writer style of Portnoy. And those fills on Petrucci and Rudess solos are mindblowing!
As usual Petrucci shows some new solo tricks but nothing too unusual . I really liked how he seated in the back with the rythm guys on several parts just rolling those muffled riff notes, attaining a certain balance and making the album sound less guitar-orientend when it really isn't. Rudess shines on what I think is the most underrated of his extense abilities: background atmospheric tone. Wierd outwordly pads, fatty organ patches, beatiful piano themes setting the correct song mood for the strings.
Having no song I skip on every listen I dare to say it's the album I've enjoyed the most, and that's probably because it's a really mature-metal oriented piece with few ballads. Their top albums for me are the SFAM - 8V cycle, but every one of them there's songs I usually skip or only listen in the "whole album" listening experience. I liked ALL the songs, and even after the cringe-ballad supermarket JP fleshed out in The Astonishing, Out of Reach is quite refreshing and I enjoyed enough to play it on its own while shuffling songs on my car.
Only two strange things happened for me with this release. First one is that while I liked the 3 pre-released songs (specially Fall Into the Light), I wasn't particularly impressed with them, but as I heard with the entire album I was like "AAAAH so that's what they were meant for" and I like them even more now.
Second think I find unfitting is that I'd give it a 10/10 1st/14 but it feels strange as no particular song stands out to me as their best song to date. Pale Blue Dot cracks the top 3 maybe. A 20 minute epic in the style of this album would propably be my #1 song. So I'd say the missing epic makes this album a 9,5 and maybe a top 3(or 4) album. It's good to be excited with this band again!
Topic: Official Distance Over Time discussion thread (Read 190346 times)
