Well, like almost everyone else, the song lengths have gotten me very excited. I must say that I was sort of hoping for an epic, but since LaBrie
said that the album would be around 80 minutes long, that hope sort of left me a while ago. But, it really isn't actually that much of a big deal. I mean, the longest song on
'Scenes from a Memory' - my favourite Dream Theater album - is only 12:52. On
'Images & Words', which I also love (but to a lesser degree), can only boast an 11:29 track as its longest. Heck, even on
'Train of Thought' (perhaps my second or third favourite DT album), the longest track -
"In the Name of God" (which is easily within my top 5 DT songs) - just clocks in at over 14 minutes. So why on earth should I be disappointed by the non-appearance of an 'epic' on this album? If the pattern is anything to go by, given the shorter song lengths, this should end up being one of my favourite Dream Theater albums.
Also, I must say that the 'epics' do occasionally fall short of that title. I mean, sure,
"A Change of Seasons" and
"Octavarium" are both wonderful - they're perfect in almost every way and they're beautifully written and constructed pieces of music. However, this hasn't always been the case. For example,
"Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" had some truly excellent moments, but it also had a lot of moments that bored me, failed to hold my attention, or simply didn't appeal to me musically. As for
"In the Presence of Enemies", that had some very, very cool moments (e.g. 9:17-11:19 of Part 2), but it too lacked memorable moments. When I think back to it, a lot of it is really just a blur of impressive instrumentation played over the top of some rather bland, mediocre compositions. And as for
"Count of Tuscany"... well, that was just a disappointment for me. That song had so little that actually encouraged repeat listens - repeat listen
which I have given to the track in large quantities, in an attempt to try and get myself to like the track, but it's simply failed to grow on me. There is just not enough substance to the song. In short, there's too much 'fat', and too few moments that are genuinely appealing to my ears.
So, I'm actually very comfortable and happy with these song lengths. Like Jamesman and a few others have pointed out, hopefully this will mean that DT have improved their editing and 'fat-cutting' skills on this occasion. Because, as much as I love long songs, I do feel that some of DT's material was getting a little overblown, especially on
'Black Clouds & Silver Linings'.
Speaking of rock, I now have a very good feeling about Outcry. It sounds like a metal type song, and if it's over 11 minutes, I have high hopes for it.
For some reason, I'm having the exact same feelings towards it. The title gives me the idea that track will have a bit of power and aggression behind it. And now that I've seen the song length, it almost ensures its epicosity. So, hard prog rock plus epic elements surely means that this track will turn out to be a killer.
It's Awake all over again. Except probably better.
Gosh, well I hope so. If this album turns out being of the same standard as
'Awake', I will be hugely disappointed.
I've never understood thinking an album is 'too long' unless it has extremely obvious filler. As long as all of the songs are good, I'll take as much as I can get.
Yeah, this is how I've always thought of it as well.
Topic: New Album Title (A Dramatic Turn of Events) and Track Listing Revealed (Read 484572 times)