Would you like to see Portnoy back in Dream theater?

[ariich]

I think Mike was cancerous to the band.

Come on snapple, you should really know the rules better by now. Constructive criticism is fine, but this sort of bashing is unacceptable. You've had a few warnings in the past, so please be more respectful unless you want to be banned.

[Kotowboy]

Not the word I would have used but his *influence* towards the end was definitely hectoring hampering the relationships and direction of the band.

[snapple]

I think Mike was cancerous to the band.

Come on snapple, you should really know the rules better by now. Constructive criticism is fine, but this sort of bashing is unacceptable. You've had a few warnings in the past, so please be more respectful unless you want to be banned.

Musically cancerous? Would that have been a better choice of words? It's what I meant. Nothing 8VM-BCSL sounded interesting, at all, to me. And I've figured it was kind of his doing.

[Kotowboy]

  Why does everyone lump Octavarium in with Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds ?

To me Octavarium is in the run of great albums from Scenes that ended with Systematic Chaos.

Moreover - Octavarium is my absolute favourite Dream Theater album.

I love how it sounds - it has a nice vibe throughout. I don't skip a single song and the title track hasn't been beaten since IMO.

[DT_Aus]

I think Mike was cancerous to the band.

Come on snapple, you should really know the rules better by now. Constructive criticism is fine, but this sort of bashing is unacceptable. You've had a few warnings in the past, so please be more respectful unless you want to be banned.

Musically cancerous? Would that have been a better choice of words? It's what I meant. Nothing 8VM-BCSL sounded interesting, at all, to me. And I've figured it was kind of his doing.

I think Mike was cancerous to the band.

Come on snapple, you should really know the rules better by now. Constructive criticism is fine, but this sort of bashing is unacceptable. You've had a few warnings in the past, so please be more respectful unless you want to be banned.

Musically cancerous? Would that have been a better choice of words? It's what I meant. Nothing 8VM-BCSL sounded interesting, at all, to me. And I've figured it was kind of his doing.

I don't think that's fully true. I think the move away from the proggyness is down to Mike but moving to the heavier stuff (and there sometimes present chugga-chugga boringness) is definitely down to JP (as proven by his involvement with Periphery)

[JPX]

They'll lose interest in playing songs that are 20 years old, when they prefer the newer material with MM. They'll play some fan service, but I suspect they'll want to focus on moving forward.

You say this like you know it as fact. Also, by your statement does that mean that every band who has been around for 20+ years dislikes playing their old material?

[JPX]

Even MP admitted afterwards that the whole thing became way too dragged out and more like a chore in the end.

And I've never even liked it!  Repentance is boring as balls! 

+ TSF as well.

TGP and TDS are amazing, TROAE is great, the last two are forgettable IMO.

Exactly how I feel too. The Glass Prison and This Dying Soul are two of my favorite Dream theater tracks, so hearing them back to back would be awesome. The Root of All Evil and The Shattered Fortress are just meh to me and Repentance is one of my least favorite DT songs.

[JPX]

I don't think that's fully true. I think the move away from the proggyness is down to Mike but moving to the heavier stuff (and there sometimes present chugga-chugga boringness) is definitely down to JP (as proven by his involvement with Periphery)

Isn't JP involvement with Periphery purely due to his relation to Bowen? I doubt he guest solos on their record if they weren't related.

Also, I always thought that Mike was the one to championed their "proggy" side, in the classic sense.

[DT_Aus]

I don't think that's fully true. I think the move away from the proggyness is down to Mike but moving to the heavier stuff (and there sometimes present chugga-chugga boringness) is definitely down to JP (as proven by his involvement with Periphery)

Isn't JP involvement with Periphery purely due to his relation to Bowen? I doubt he guest solos on their record if they weren't related.

Also, I always thought that Mike was the one to championed their "proggy" side, in the classic sense.

He definitely go involved with them because of Bowen but I think he wanted to because he seems to be in this very djent-y space at the moment. That's what I'm thinking anyway.

Mike used to be the biggest promoter of the prog route in DT but in the past 5-10 years, he's gone down the more mainstream track and tried to rein in the weirdness and try to go as straight rock/metal as possible without losing too much off their identity. Maybe it's because of JLB's vocal issues, I don't know

[Montsegur97]

I think I'll have to wait for this album to release and probably the next one before I make a decision.  ADTOE for me was a pretty big disappointment, I listen to just about every other DT album before listening to even one song from ADTOE.  So if this one feels the same, along with the next, I'll be able to conclude MP's influence was greater than what I initially thought.

[mikeyd23]

Mike used to be the biggest promoter of the prog route in DT but in the past 5-10 years, he's gone down the more mainstream track and tried to rein in the weirdness and try to go as straight rock/metal as possible without losing too much off their identity. Maybe it's because of JLB's vocal issues, I don't know

Yeah you are right... I think before MP left, he pushed the band in a prog direction at one point, a more straight forward rock/metal direction, and a pure metal direction.  I think he pushed the band in whatever direction he was personally musically into at that point in time. Which started to dilute DT's identity and uniqueness.  And that became the problem.

[JPX]

Mike used to be the biggest promoter of the prog route in DT but in the past 5-10 years, he's gone down the more mainstream track and tried to rein in the weirdness and try to go as straight rock/metal as possible without losing too much off their identity. Maybe it's because of JLB's vocal issues, I don't know

Yeah you are right... I think before MP left, he pushed the band in a prog direction at one point, a more straight forward rock/metal direction, and a pure metal direction.  I think he pushed the band in whatever direction he was personally musically into at that point in time. Which started to dilute DT's identity and uniqueness.  And that became the problem.

I do agree with you, and it's evident in the DT material. It's just weird given Transatlantic and everything else MP does with Neal Morse. Clearly he loves the classic prog vibe, so why didn't he push it more into DT?

[Scorpion]

I know that not many people will agree with this, but I am actually happy that he didn't do so. BC&SL and SC are still more enjoyable to me than most classic prog that I know.

[Lucien]

Why does everyone lump Octavarium in with Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds ?

To me Octavarium is in the run of great albums from Scenes that ended with Systematic Chaos.

Moreover - Octavarium is my absolute favourite Dream Theater album.

I love how it sounds - it has a nice vibe throughout. I don't skip a single song and the title track hasn't been beaten since IMO.

This.

[Sycsa]

I know that not many people will agree with this, but I am actually happy that he didn't do so. BC&SL and SC are still more enjoyable to me than most classic prog that I know.

My eyes are bleeding from reading that.

[mikeyd23]

I do agree with you, and it's evident in the DT material. It's just weird given Transatlantic and everything else MP does with Neal Morse. Clearly he loves the classic prog vibe, so why didn't he push it more into DT?

Yep, it is weird. I guess MP was getting his fill of classic prog style material in those projects and had a completely different vision for DT.

[Scorpion]

I know that not many people will agree with this, but I am actually happy that he didn't do so. BC&SL and SC are still more enjoyable to me than most classic prog that I know.

My eyes are bleeding from reading that.

Well... mine aren't. Seriously, I could never get into most prog rock, aside from the odd song here and there - Karn Evil 9, Starless, Firth of Fifth are some examples - but it almost never grabs me, and that's probably largely due to (and I know that I'm HUGELY generalising here, so bear with me) that it contains a large amount of bombast which I find unlistenable without a certain heaviness, a certain bite to counter that, which prog rock - or those examples of it that I know - only seldom offers.

[KevShmev]

Completely disagree with you guys, TSF was the best 12-step song since TGP for me. TDS is easily the weakest.

This.  But I think this idea that the "12-step suite just has to be played live" is just silly.  Those five songs, one after another, would get tedious real fast, because of the countless recurring riffs and melodies and lyrics.  Not to mention that they do not naturally flow into another.

Why does everyone lump Octavarium in with Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds ?

To me Octavarium is in the run of great albums from Scenes that ended with Systematic Chaos.

Moreover - Octavarium is my absolute favourite Dream Theater album.

I love how it sounds - it has a nice vibe throughout. I don't skip a single song and the title track hasn't been beaten since IMO.

Because the songwriting is very uneven on that record, much like it is on Systematic Chaos.  It's almost like, they put so much effort into the whole Octavarium thing - writing every song in a different key - that they put themselves in a corner and came out of it saying, "Yeah, we pulled it off," but the songwriting, which was dictated by the whole key/8V thing, suffered greatly.  Songwriting is at its best when creativity flows naturally, not when guys say, "Okay, this song HAS to be written in G."

[Spark Mandrill]

Have to agree regarding the "12 Step Suite" - I would not want to hear all of those songs back to back. Just thinking about the potential songs that could eliminate from a live set depresses me. I've listened to them all straight through before and it wore me out by the end of it.

And concerning ever wanting MP back, I have to agree with everyone else saying, "why?".

[The Boomr]

This.  But I think this idea that the "12-step suite just has to be played live" is just silly.  Those five songs, one after another, would get tedious real fast, because of the countless recurring riffs and melodies and lyrics. Not to mention that they do not naturally flow into another.

Actually they do flow together....
Search for it on YouTube. There's an excellent video that puts all the transitions together near perfectly, because the first 3 songs were designed that way intentionally, in fact.

[BlobVanDam]

I'd remove that link, so you don't get boskinated.

And of course they flow together. They were written that way. They actually work much better together as a whole than you'd expect from the individual songs. I don't even mind TSF in the context of the whole thing, although it's the only part of the 12SS I don't much like at all on its own.

[KevShmev]

This.  But I think this idea that the "12-step suite just has to be played live" is just silly.  Those five songs, one after another, would get tedious real fast, because of the countless recurring riffs and melodies and lyrics. Not to mention that they do not naturally flow into another.

Actually they do flow together....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWQU8Jisb6k
(Don't ask me why that vid starts at 40 something minutes in.... )

   Taking away the fact that the maker of that took liberties with ending The Glass Prison early/putting the beginning of This Dying Soul over the end of TGP, chopping off the beginning of The Root of All Evil, etc., the transitions are still awkward and do not sound natural at all. 

[BlobVanDam]

They did a bad job of cutting TGP into TDS, but the songs are clearly written to go right into each other with the same bar ending one, and starting the next. When edited properly, it is seamless. I've done it myself.
And the intro of TROAE is not intended to be cut off, so they just messed up editing them together. I'm sure the intro was intended as a break to swap guitars, because they're not in the same tuning, so they were written with the continuity in mind.

[bosk1]

Completely disagree with you guys, TSF was the best 12-step song since TGP for me. TDS is easily the weakest.

This.  But I think this idea that the "12-step suite just has to be played live" is just silly.  Those five songs, one after another, would get tedious real fast, because of the countless recurring riffs and melodies and lyrics.  Not to mention that they do not naturally flow into another.

From the standpoint of having to sit through it at a concert, I completely agree with you.  From the standpoint of being able to pop in a CD/DVD to enjoy it when I'm in the rare mood for the entire thing, I wish it had been done as a one-off.

[DT_Aus]

I do agree with you, and it's evident in the DT material. It's just weird given Transatlantic and everything else MP does with Neal Morse. Clearly he loves the classic prog vibe, so why didn't he push it more into DT?

On the flip side, you have Mike's band Adrenaline Mob and his involvement with Avenged Sevenfold (until they canned him :haha:)

He just loves music, I guess and wanted to create as much as possible and, in the end, didn't care which band produced what as long as he was creating. I am glad that he's finally settled on to one genre now though and I have to admit that I LOVE the Winery Dogs album

[The Boomr]

I'd remove that link, so you don't get boskinated.

And of course they flow together. They were written that way. They actually work much better together as a whole than you'd expect from the individual songs. I don't even mind TSF in the context of the whole thing, although it's the only part of the 12SS I don't much like at all on its own.

I completely agree with what you say. TSF works in context as the closer, but by itself I'm really meh about it. Except for the very end of it. I was like shitting my pants when I heard the reprise of the TGP opening melody, and then it ends off with the bell from TGP in between the riff from TROAE, and then they leave it unresolved just like that guitar chord from TROAE!!!!! So fabulous.

[The Boomr]

   Taking away the fact that the maker of that took liberties with ending The Glass Prison early/putting the beginning of This Dying Soul over the end of TGP, chopping off the beginning of The Root of All Evil, etc., the transitions are still awkward and do not sound natural at all. 

The beginning of TDS is very specifically the exact same cadence and chords as the ending of TGS, so that transition sounds pretty much exactly how they would've played it together. I agree I want the slow intro of TROAE in that transition, just a personal preference with someone cutting these all together. TROAE transitioning to Repentance is really cool because it ends on an unresolved chord, then Repentance is in that key....beautiful imo. I believe Repentance to TSF is also the same key.

[aprilethereal]

Why does everyone lump Octavarium in with Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds ?

To me Octavarium is in the run of great albums from Scenes that ended with Systematic Chaos.

Moreover - Octavarium is my absolute favourite Dream Theater album.

I love how it sounds - it has a nice vibe throughout. I don't skip a single song and the title track hasn't been beaten since IMO.

QFT. 8VM is "only" my second favourite, but apart from that, I agree 1000000000%.

EDIT: I wouldn't call SDOIT a "great album", so maybe only 999999999%

[TheGreatPretender]

Why does everyone lump Octavarium in with Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds ?

To me Octavarium is in the run of great albums from Scenes that ended with Systematic Chaos.

Moreover - Octavarium is my absolute favourite Dream Theater album.

I love how it sounds - it has a nice vibe throughout. I don't skip a single song and the title track hasn't been beaten since IMO.

Well, I could always ask, why are you lumping Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds. I think Systematic Chaos is an amazing album, whereas Black Clouds was like Systematic Chaos, only stripped of its progressive and melodic sense, and with poorly written lyrics.

But to be more fair, I don't think any DT album should be lumped with any other one. I think they all have enough of a sonic difference to say, "This is what makes this album unique." And even the albums that I'd say are my least favorite, are my least favorite for completely different reasons.

Which makes me feel like, if someone doesn't like two albums for the same reason (i.e. They're too heavy, not progressive enough, or overcompressed, or whatever) then that just says more about their personal taste in music, and not about the quality of the actual albums.

[The Boomr]

Why does everyone lump Octavarium in with Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds ?

To me Octavarium is in the run of great albums from Scenes that ended with Systematic Chaos.

Moreover - Octavarium is my absolute favourite Dream Theater album.

I love how it sounds - it has a nice vibe throughout. I don't skip a single song and the title track hasn't been beaten since IMO.

Well, I could always ask, why are you lumping Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds. I think Systematic Chaos is an amazing album, whereas Black Clouds was like Systematic Chaos, only stripped of its progressive and melodic sense, and with poorly written lyrics.

But to be more fair, I don't think any DT album should be lumped with any other one. I think they all have enough of a sonic difference to say, "This is what makes this album unique." And even the albums that I'd say are my least favorite, are my least favorite for completely different reasons.

Which makes me feel like, if someone doesn't like two albums for the same reason (i.e. They're too heavy, not progressive enough, or overcompressed, or whatever) then that just says more about their personal taste in music, and not about the quality of the actual albums.

That is like the best overall description of DT albums I've ever read. Couldn't have said it better myself

[aprilethereal]

Great post indeed

I recently rediscovered SC and WDADU, and although WDADU is still my least favourite due to the lack of truly amazing songs, I'd say that BC&SL and SDOIT are the only DT albums I don't enjoy all the way through, although a lot of songs from these two records are great and I don't consider them bad albums at all, just ones that are only "good". Of course, there are songs in the DT catalogue that I'm not the biggest fan of, but their discography is truly impressive, 11 albums and none of those even come close to being bad.

[kirksnosehair]

Completely disagree with you guys, TSF was the best 12-step song since TGP for me. TDS is easily the weakest.

This.  But I think this idea that the "12-step suite just has to be played live" is just silly.  Those five songs, one after another, would get tedious real fast, because of the countless recurring riffs and melodies and lyrics.  Not to mention that they do not naturally flow into another.

Why does everyone lump Octavarium in with Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds ?

To me Octavarium is in the run of great albums from Scenes that ended with Systematic Chaos.

Moreover - Octavarium is my absolute favourite Dream Theater album.

I love how it sounds - it has a nice vibe throughout. I don't skip a single song and the title track hasn't been beaten since IMO.

Because the songwriting is very uneven on that record, much like it is on Systematic Chaos.  It's almost like, they put so much effort into the whole Octavarium thing - writing every song in a different key - that they put themselves in a corner and came out of it saying, "Yeah, we pulled it off," but the songwriting, which was dictated by the whole key/8V thing, suffered greatly.  Songwriting is at its best when creativity flows naturally, not when guys say, "Okay, this song HAS to be written in G."

I think the idea of Octavarium was pretty cool.  As far as songwriting goes, it's pretty easy to transpose keys for most things, so that would be a non-issue.  I just think about half the songs on Octavarium aren't all that good original sounding.  Part of the problem -at least for me- was this seemed to be the height of Dream Theater's "copping other bands' sounds" period.  This lead to a plethora of tracks that sound like "Dream Theater doing a U2 impression" or "Dream Theater trying to sound like Muse" when most of us would have preferred that Dream Theater just be....Dream Theater.


For me, personally, they could have made more records like "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" and maybe just explore and expand upon THEIR OWN sound on those subsequent albums.  Instead they went with this inspiration corner thing and I think that actually worked against them.


Despite all of that, based on the way ADTOE sounded and on what I'm hearing about the new single and how it sounds.....I'm starting to wonder if Dream Theater will ever put out another recording that sounds as good as Octavarium does on a sonic level?  I mean, it's far from perfect, but Octavarium is pure sonic bliss compared to the wet-blanket-over-speakers sound of ADTOE.


Surely a band this far along in their career has SOMEONE to help them sound good?

[The Boomr]

Despite all of that, based on the way ADTOE sounded and on what I'm hearing about the new single and how it sounds.....I'm starting to wonder if Dream Theater will ever put out another recording that sounds as good as Octavarium does on a sonic level?  I mean, it's far from perfect, but Octavarium is pure sonic bliss compared to the wet-blanket-over-speakers sound of ADTOE.


Surely a band this far along in their career has SOMEONE to help them sound good?

While I don't quite agree with you about ADTOE (I enjoyed the way everything sounded except the bass drums, and sometimes JP's solos sounded too small), I can firmly agree that it seems as if the band has not had any consistency whatsoever in the production of their albums, since 8VM. I've always tried to ignore the fact that it might be because MP and JP became the producers starting with SC, but with each new album, that does seem more and more to be the culprit :/

[Tis BOOLsheet]

Whoever is correct about Octavarium in saying certain songs sound too much like DT doing U2 or Muse etc. This was one of the main problems though I appreciated MP's effort to explore new influences. However, the reason why those songs turned out to be atrocious is because DT is not U2, and DT is not a bad that writes music in same style. As a result it sounded like a band trying to write in a style they weren't very good in. Similarly, I don't think U2 would fare well writing progressive metal.

When one of the members of the band comes out and says I Walk Beside you was passed around to commercial radio for airplay, in the way that this tune presumably was, you know something has gone terribly wrong.

I also concur with what Kirk said about Octavarium in terms of production.

[The Boomr]

Whoever is correct about Octavarium in saying certain songs sound too much like DT doing U2 or Muse etc. This was one of the main problems though I appreciated MP's effort to explore new influences. However, the reason why those songs turned out to be atrocious is because DT is not U2, and DT is not a bad that writes music in same style. As a result it sounded like a band trying to write in a style they weren't very good in. Similarly, I don't think U2 would fare well writing progressive metal.

When one of the members of the band comes out and says I Walk Beside you was passed around to commercial radio for airplay, in the way that this tune presumably was, you know something has gone terribly wrong.

I also concur with what Kirk said about Octavarium in terms of production.

Why is it a bad thing that I Walk Beside you was passed around to radio stations?