DT fans are impossible. "I WANT ORIGINAL STUFF" - DT creates a 2 cd rock opera unlike anything they've ever done before. "WAAH, I DIDN'T WANT THAT; I WANTED THE STUFF THAT SOUNDED LIKE WHAT THEY DID BEFORE!".
"DT ARE GETTING STALE" - "WAH, DT IS MAKING MUSIC THATS TOO DIFFERENT FROM WHAT THEY USED TO MAKE".
It's a sea of contradicitions.
And then comes along an album that literally rests on cliches; "OOOH, SHINY!"
Not sure if you're referring to me or not- but for the record, I'm not a huge DT fan, at least not in the same way most folks here are. I like the band and admire their best albums, but I'm here more for the General Music section of the forum and to interact with other fans of the same general type of music I enjoy.
I just don't care much for The Astonishing. That's my opinion. I don't go out of my way to make a big deal about it, because I know most folks here don't agree with my thoughts on it and that's fine. My opinions are my opinions- same goes for literally every person in this forum that adores it, thinks it's okay or thinks it's garbage.
And I make no claims that Sons of Apollo are doing anything new- they aren't. I just happen to think that for a debut album from a prog metal band consisting entirely of men in their fifties, it's not bad and does what it does well. It's not groundbreaking or original, but it's done well.
That doesn't make the album better than Dream Theater's greatest works- because frankly it'd be hard for most any band to do that, especially under these circumstances. I just happen to like it better than The Astonishing and probably Dream Theater's self-titled album (it's been ages since I last revisited that one). A Dramatic Turn of Events is very blatantly Dream Theater returning to a sound more akin to Images & Words to play it safe in introduce the fanbase to their new drummer, but that doesn't change the album from being pretty damn awesome, does it?