Dream Theater Finishes Smoking Barbecue!! - Album in Food Warmer!

[Peter Mc]

You guys are both right.  It IS a better example of truly "fragmenting" a song.  But it was indeed done for a legitimate creative reason.   In hindsight, I wish they would have left it together.  But I still absolutely respect the creative decision and the reasoning behind it.  As an aside, I think another factor in addition to it being a good opener and a good closer, I also think they just felt like having a 20+ minute epic to close out an album right after doing that with Octavarium would have been too formulaic.  Splitting the song solved that problem as well.  So many years after the fact, if they closed the album with it, it would probably just be a little footnote by now.  But at the time, I can see how it might have been a sticking point and made them want to rearrange the album.  And they would have had the same issue when they got to BCSL.  Not having the giant epic close the album solves that.

Of course, they could have gotten around it simply by having another song be the closer.  In my alternate track listing for that album (the only time I have rearranged a DT album), I have the entire epic start the album, and I close it with TMOLS (I don't like the song, but it seems to work better as a closer).  I really like the flow of the album that way.  To a new fan, especially one who might not be a prog fan, asking them to sit through a 25+ minute piece of music to start off the album is a big ask though, so I get why they might not have chosen to go that route as well.  But it certainly does flow well.

I think Mike actually said that they didn’t want to do another big epic to end the album for the reasons you said in terms of repeating the previous album. He also said to put the whole thing as an opener would be too big of a hump to get over at the start of an album which makes sense. I think he also mentioned that it would be strange and anticlimactic to have this huge epic ending and then carry on the album afterwards so it made sense for it to close the album.

Like others have said, when I put the album on my iPod, I change the running order so that they play consecutively at the beginning and MOLS ends the album.

Not a popular opinion probably but I actually much prefer ITPOE to SDOIT or 8V as an epic. If you took out the short “DARK MASTER” section, it may be in my top tier of DT songs.

[bosk1]

Not a popular opinion probably but I actually much prefer ITPOE to SDOIT or 8V as an epic.

Hey, that's totally cool.  I can respe--

If you took out the short “DARK MASTER” section...

I WILL FIGHT YOU RIGHT NOW!

[Cool Chris]

I think breaking up ItPoE was a bold choice and one I wholeheartedly support. I also think it is a stellar song (minus maybe a couple minutes of instrumental toward the end). And I like the Dark Master section. It could have fallen flat, if not for the brilliance of James.

[KevShmev]

OK - how do you guys edit songs?  What program do you use?  Could something like Garageband work for that?

Audacity works well for me.

I used to use it to break really long songs into shorter pieces for the purposes of making CDs for the car, for occasions where I wanted to hear a part of a song on a short drive for example, but now that I usually listen to music from my phone in the car, I don't do that anymore.

I will still use it on occasion to edit something if track indexing seems off or something.

[Lonk]

I have no problem with them splitting ITPOE. I know they mentioned not wanting 2 albums with epic ending but it was also a tribute to Pink Floyd “Wish you were here” and it’s album structure.

[Max Kuehnau]

Back to topic now: Jordan and Petruccinator being funny: https://www.instagram.com/p/BnVDhqfnY15/?taken-by=jcrudess (cool keyboard lines too IMHO)

[gzarruk]

Back to topic now: Jordan and Petruccinator being funny: https://www.instagram.com/p/BnVDhqfnY15/?taken-by=jcrudess (cool keyboard lines too IMHO)

Btw, that’s the same keyboard model that Diego Tejeida used to record a lot of Haken’s upcoming album Vector

[IDontNotDoThings]

I've made so many edits that I think I'm officially an Audacity expert now








(yeah, i have a bit of an obsession )

[Pax]

ItPoE is my favourite song ever (along with The Cinema Show by Genesis)
Dark Master section is great, one of the best performances by JLB (and the best one since ACoS)

I don't usually have the practice to listen to DT by albums, I only listen to particular songs, so I have always listened to ItPoE as one track. But when I'm listening to the whole album sometimes, I listen it in the way it was written. Part I ends with many questions left unresolved, but that doesn't mean I cannot wait and listen to the rest of the album before listening to part II, resolving all the questions.
It reminds me in a way to Beethoven's Op. 110 sonata, where development section of the 1st mvt is very scarce and you have to wait until the fugues in the 3rd mvt to actually develop the 1st's themes.
So yeah, splitting ItPoE is one of the ingenious things DT has done

[Peter Mc]

When I say the DARK MASTER section, I should say that I don't mean all of the Heretic section, I love most of that, the Angels Fall, All For You Heretic stuff is great.  I just mean the actual repeated chorus of "DARK MASTER within, I will fight for you etc." just always sounds really hokey to me, the lyrics, the riff, the way JLB sings it.  Just my opinion though, cool if other people love it.

[jammindude]

When I say the DARK MASTER section, I should say that I don't mean all of the Heretic section, I love most of that, the Angels Fall, All For You Heretic stuff is great.  I just mean the actual repeated chorus of "DARK MASTER within, I will fight for you etc." just always sounds really hokey to me, the lyrics, the riff, the way JLB sings it.  Just my opinion though, cool if other people love it.

This is the sole reason I find ITPOE to be DTs weakest epic.

[Evai]

Yeah, the dark master thing is kind of grating to me, everything else about the song is brilliant though. I think maybe it's sung in too low of a vocal register. If I imagine 90's era Labrie singing it an octave higher with a ton of nice resonance, it sounds amazing 

[bosk1]

You people are doing life/music wrong.

[Ben_Jamin]

When I say the DARK MASTER section, I should say that I don't mean all of the Heretic section, I love most of that, the Angels Fall, All For You Heretic stuff is great.  I just mean the actual repeated chorus of "DARK MASTER within, I will fight for you etc." just always sounds really hokey to me, the lyrics, the riff, the way JLB sings it.  Just my opinion though, cool if other people love it.

What would have worked better than Dark Master? Lord Satan? Haha...Shadow Lord would've worked just a smidge better.

Dark Master makes it more vauge and open. The same with Music Player in Act of Faythe.

Man we need more updates...soon.

[Polarbear]

Lyrics for ITPOE are so cheesy and yet so awesome!

Really love that song, part 1 and 2..

[MirrorMask]

Maybe the big chorus of "Dark master" is too much in your face, but the slow part at the beginning of the second part, with James softly singing "Angels fall... all for you... heretic" and then the piano gently playing the Dark Master vocal melody, that's quite brilliant.

[TL]

All I know is that I can't wait for this album. I've been a fan since about 1992, and have seen DT live 4 times so far. If they come to Maine, it will be 5 times. They're my favorite band !

Welcome Bro.

Through my connections I just saw a peak of the upcoming East Coast Canadian tour.

Montreal
Toronto
Bangor
Ottowa

I always make the mistake of getting my hopes up when I hear about a band I like touring on Canada's east coast. You'd think I'd have learned by now that most bands use "east coast" to describe a part of the country that's over 500 km west of the actual east coast provinces.  I'm starting to suspect that the rest of the country uses a different map that ends at the St Lawrence.

[gm5k]

the snippet sounds like ADTOE mixed with Haken

I find it interesting that DT is now being influenced by a band that they had the most influence on.  "Sounds like Haken."  I've seen this quite a bit. Nope it sounds like Dream Theater 

Not a knock on your post in particular, just a thing I've thought about recently with DT.  I really love Haken, too.  In fact I think I'll go jam some "1985" right now 

As for the snips I've heard so far, I'm definitely excited.  I agree with those that are getting an ADTOE vibe, sounds like classic DT.  That first one had a bit of an LTE vibe.  Who knows though? The snips are short,  but things are sounding great.  Was kind of hoping for ToT 2 heaviness wise, but from the snips it's not feeling like that so far.  Wouldn't be surprised if a couple of tracks are super heavy though, like how Awake had great variety.

[Max Kuehnau]

Whatever the end result will be, I'm sure it will just work.

[gm5k]

Whatever the end result will be, I'm sure it will just work.

Completely agree 

[Renzo]

Whatever the end result will be, I'm sure it will just work.

Completely agree 

*2

[Kocak]

Apparently, Jordan is done tracking keyboards.

[TAC]

Apparently, Jordan is done tracking keyboards.

Awesome news!

[RMGadelha]

Awesome! So we only have James left (who already started) and it's on to mixing I suppose.

Also, I wonder if this here is part of the new album... If it is, I hear some mad riffing on the background.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnVDhqfnY15/?taken-by=jcrudess

[jammindude]

I’m actually really looking forward to this album. I’ve been a bit burned out on DT the last few years, and my initial thrill over TA has diminished significantly.

But I’ve really been hooked on DT12, ADTOE, and the live releases, and it’s got me pretty pumped. Mostly, I’m dying of curiosity as to what the live set will contain. Last tour was pretty much just TA, and the tour before didn’t spread the setlist around very much (nearly all the songs centered on just 4 albums), so it would seem like this tour would be a great opportunity to dust off all kinds of gems. I feel like they might be ready to take a break from doing large portions of albums as anniversary tributes, but I’d be shocked if they didn’t at least acknowledge WDADUs 30th. (Maybe a good time to pull out The Killng Hand?) and you can’t just ignore SFAMs 20th, but doing the medley from 5yrs ago might seem like retreading.

IDK,  I just suddenly found myself excited for what the new tour might bring this time around and I wanted to express that.

[fadetoblackdude7]

I’m actually really looking forward to this album. I’ve been a bit burned out on DT the last few years, and my initial thrill over TA has diminished significantly.

But I’ve really been hooked on DT12, ADTOE, and the live releases, and it’s got me pretty pumped. Mostly, I’m dying of curiosity as to what the live set will contain. Last tour was pretty much just TA, and the tour before didn’t spread the setlist around very much (nearly all the songs centered on just 4 albums), so it would seem like this tour would be a great opportunity to dust off all kinds of gems. I feel like they might be ready to take a break from doing large portions of albums as anniversary tributes, but I’d be shocked if they didn’t at least acknowledge WDADUs 30th. (Maybe a good time to pull out The Killng Hand?) and you can’t just ignore SFAMs 20th, but doing the medley from 5yrs ago might seem like retreading.

IDK,  I just suddenly found myself excited for what the new tour might bring this time around and I wanted to express that.

For the love of god, play something from SDOIT (preferably TGP) and 8vm!!! Both albums have been completely ignored since the ADTOE tour.

[RMGadelha]

For the love of god, play something from SDOIT (preferably TGP) and 8vm!!! Both albums have been completely ignored since the ADTOE tour.

I approve of this, especially because 6DOIT is my favorite DT album

[gzarruk]

Awesome! So we only have James left (who already started) and it's on to mixing I suppose.

Also, I wonder if this here is part of the new album... If it is, I hear some mad riffing on the background.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnVDhqfnY15/?taken-by=jcrudess

At first, I thought it was just some random JR noodling on the keys, but you mentioned the riffing on the background, so I just checked it again, and... mindblown! It could be something that would sound much better in the context of a song... or just another clue for the treasure hunt (paranoid much?)

[ToT-147]

For the love of god, play something from SDOIT (preferably TGP) and 8vm!!! Both albums have been completely ignored since the ADTOE tour.

Well, they have played Panic Attack and About to Crash in the 30th anniversary tour in 2015, but yeah, I think it's already time for either TGP or 8V (the song)... but it be great if they at least play a song they haven't played yet with MM from any of those albums, and/or from ToT too..

[Max Kuehnau]

 Back to topic (again): Jordan just recently finished his keyboard parts. https://www.instagram.com/p/BnXFTRGHgWE/?taken-by=jcrudess
Only James left now and then it's on to mixing and mastering. Speaking of Jordan, this interview was posted fairly recently (although it must have been conducted before they went in the studio IMHO). He talks about DT14 as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtkG8oGmEpo

[Kocak]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnZHNXlnzp1/?taken-by=dtimages

New post with a lot of snippets.

 

[gzarruk]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnZHNXlnzp1/?taken-by=dtimages

New post with a lot of snippets.

 

 

Seriously loving everything they've posted so far.

[Ravenfoul]

Sounds inspired. Digging it.

[Max Kuehnau]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnZHNXlnzp1/?taken-by=dtimages

New post with a lot of snippets.

 

and here is a longer version for all of us: https://www.facebook.com/dreamtheater/videos/2180716415334005/

[Fritzinger]

Wow that sounds pretty badass 
Still not sure if I like the snare sound, but I don't want to judge by these short snippets in iPhone-camera-and-then-uploaded-to-Facebook quality.