After 6 listens, I decided to make the 7th listen the complete journey. I already loved the hell out of this album, but after 130 minutes of subsequent, pure, musical bliss... i'm safe to say that The Astonishing has become my favourite album of Dream Theater. I'll say it to you all, TA is meant to be listened in its whole. You will get the complete experience and be blown away by a cyclone of melodies, riffs, vocals, drums, synths, violins, strings and more. Dream Theater has completely outdone themselves with this and I couldn't be any more happier. There is SO much great stuff going on, astonishing might indeed be my only definition. And the real MVP...of course it's none other than JLB. Easily his best performance since SFAM. Where the hell did he hide this voice all the time?!! I cannot choose the best vocal part, it's impossible. First I loved the chorus on Brother... , then Losing Faythe's "farewell" reprise by Nafaryus become by favourite vocal part, then the finale of Hymn of a Thousand Voices, then his high on ravenskill, and so forth. While there's a lot of melodic slow stuff, there's also a well-balanced heavier riffy portions on this album. So to make this short, everyone that already loves the crap out of this album but haven't listened it in one go, do it. It's probably demanding for a lot of people but I feel that this album has been created to listen it in its whole. Can't wait to see the guys performing The Astonishing in front of my eyes, upcoming Monday.
Peace out, DTF'ers!