I always felt like there was something truly special, exciting or unique about every DT album - with the exception of Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds & Silver Linings and the self-titled. Does anyone else agree? Here's my reasoning:
WDADU - Almost exempt because it was an indie recording on a shoestring budget and got next to no recognition when released. But it's still their first album so that alone makes it special.
I&W - Pretty obvious here. Introduced the world to the band and opened the floodgates to their enduring career.
AWAKE - Anxiously awaited follow-up to their breakthrough and was anything but I&W Part 2. Richer production, heavier & slightly modernized sound, darker themes. Masterpiece.
FII - The 'commercial' album so to speak, but has a wholly unique sound that you can't really compare to any other release, and is a great example of the band streamlining some of their epic tendencies.
SFAM - The most epic prog-rock concept album of the millennium.
SDOIT - Sprawling double-disc with an 8-part song cycle comprising the entire Disc 2. Explored heavier material and other newer sonic territories on Disc 1.
ToT - The band's first all-out "metal album." Not exactly a classic in my opinion, but it was indeed a different approach and was pretty badass.
8V - Not a concept album per se, but nevertheless a unique concept playing around the number 8 and full-circle concept. Also ended a four-album end-to-start flow which was pretty cool.
ADTOE - First album without Portnoy. Would they pull it off? They did, and even regained some of their "classic sound" in the process.
With Systematic Chaos, nothing new was explored. There was an epic, some metal stuff, some proggy-stuff, and it's a decent album overall, but I get the sense after the fantastic "Score" tour the band said 'where do we go from here?' and never really found a great answer. Portnoy himself said the only requirement for the album was to have "balls." They had already done that with Train of Thought.
Black Clouds & Silver Linings is more of the same. Nothing really new explored yet again. A fun listen with some great moments, but that's it.
Self-titled is a very good album in general that continued the band's more "classic-sounding" approach started with ADTOE, but it felt like time to shake things up a bit and try something groundbreaking, which they didn't.
The upcoming 13th album has me very excited that we'll get something "special" again, based on the extra time the band has taken and what we've seen so far.