After listening to this album, I'm just really sad and disappointed with it. I was hoping for the creative spark and energy of SFAM, but all I got was sleepy ballads that quite literally made me fall asleep... twice. Some of the high moments were really really high for me. They'd get into this great part and then it would just stop and we'd go back to some slow piano ballad thing.
Also, all the ballads are the pretty much the same. Start with piano/acoustic, do a verse, then have the drums do a 1 measure fill. This happens I think about 7 times on the album.
I just feel like they never get into anything in this album. I feel like the music is just one long drone with some brilliant playing thrown in, only to be thrown away just as quickly as it showed up.
The problem to me is that DT are really great musicians. Their writing as of late has felt uninspired to me, though. One thing I always thought about JP was that his lyrics were not very good. Then he decides to take on writing an entire rock opera and to me, the story is trite. It's just cliche after cliche with lyrics that just hit right on the nose the whole time. So, I think this album was set up to failure from the beginning. I think they would have been better off having an actual writer come in to do the story and then they do the music for it. Maybe that would have helped the emotional part come through.
Also, the fade out of A new beginning has go to be the absolute biggest let down I have ever heard in music. That groove and solo are so god damn amazing and then it just fades out?! This, to me, feels like the most creatively bankrupt thing I have ever heard from DT. I mean, what happened to figuring out transitions and making the music have flow? God, this just let me down in ways I don't even understand.
I'm actually considering selling my ticket to the RC show.
Anyways, I'm super sad that this album missed the mark for me. I'll just keep listening to 8v and earlier because that is still some of the best music out there. I just for once would like to get a DT album that I feel really shows what they are capable of. I don't know why, but I just feel they can do so much better.