Edit: I'm copying cyberdrummer's disclaimer and pasting it here cause I'll probably need it.
Disclaimer: I might be remembering the album all wrong, so don't rip me apart when you all hear it! These are just my memories and opinions.Okay, here we go.
I'm going to assume that we are allowed to talk about our impressions since no one there asked us to keep it to ourselves. Not that I expect that anyone who attended will be able to share a lot of detailed information about the songs anyway, only bits and pieces. It would be easier to take mental notes if you were allowed to stream it once sitting at home, using your own stereo or headphones. Now you're basically bombarded with new sounds and impressions while sitting in a room where everyone is pretty much geeking out simultaneously.
Anyways, John and James came in and talked to us. They told us they've been in Europe for the past 10 days or so, promoting the album (additional interviews should start surfacing soon I guess). They've hosted listening parties in London, Paris (IIRC) and now Stockholm. After a while they started taking questions from us. I didn't get to ask any of the two questions I was going to ask but the most important one was asked by someone else anyhow; "what happened to the Swedish gig that was first announced and then almost instantly removed". They both assured us that they are definitely coming to Stockholm. The rest of the questions were about stuff that we all already know here. You know, stuff like "why did you go for a self-titled album", "is it hard to stay motivated and creative after this many years of writing-recording-touring" and of course the obligatory question about John's chocolate cake. I didn't get to ask John if he had eaten any kiwis today.
After that we went upstairs where we had our photos taken with the guys and we were allowed to bring one item to get signed. I asked John if Eren and the string section would be
Along For The Ride, so to speak. He thought it was a cool idea and that it would be nice to do that for some special event or something. In other words, it seems they won't be traveling with the band, touring the world (which is honestly quite understandable given how long they'd be on the road). We finished with a group shot of everyone together and before we headed back inside they gave us our "I heard it first" laminates. (see my post close to the bottom of page 12 in this thread)
When we were all back in the room where the actual listening was going to take place John and James addressed us one last time, saying that they had to get going and that they hoped that we were going to enjoy the album. John told us that the room we were in was not exactly blessed with the most divine 5.1 sound in the world and that we should keep that in mind while listening. Yes, we got to listen to the 5.1 mix which was quite interesting.
Well then, enough with the fairy tails. Let's talk about the
actual music. I'm afraid I won't be able to go into much detail. It was a lot to take in and I really should have memorized the track order before going there. Now it often took me several minutes before I figured out which song I was even listening to which made it even harder to properly "file" all the impressions in my head.
Okay, keep in mind that this text is probably not going to be very accurate at all. I usually need to listen to a new album several times before I can even start forming an opinion. So, remember to take this with a
large grain of salt and don't read too much into this as I'm sure it's not very accurate at all.
NEEDLESS TO SAY; IN CASE YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ANY SPOILERS - STOP READING!
1. False Awakening SuiteThis didn't really feel like a "song" to me, more like a really cool, cinematic intro featuring elements of progressive metal (which quite frankly was pretty much what I was expecting). I don't think that I'll be listening to this much as a stand-alone song but it's certainly going to be a cool opener live. There is no seamless transition into
The Enemy Inside, the sound actually fades out before it starts but that doesn't mean it'll be that way live. noxon already stated this but the new material we got to see in the fourth "In the studio" clip is literally the first thing you hear on the album.
2. The Enemy InsideDon't really need to say anything about this one, right? The only thing I
will say is that it seems as if James' vocals are louder in the 5.1 mix. I immediately noticed a difference when we got to the first verse. Sure, it could be that the far from optimal 5.1 system we were listening to was unbalanced but the difference was definitely noticeable.
3. The Looking GlassThis was like taking a trip down memory lane. It definitely makes you think of their earlier material and I think that a lot of people will enjoy this song.
4. Enigma MachineA cool and rather heavy instrumental. Mike does some pretty awesome things in this song, which by the way goes for all of the guys (except for poor James of course
). There was one thing that Mike did that made both me and the guy sitting next to me laugh out loud at the same time.
5. The Bigger PictureJames said that this is probably one of his favorite songs on the album and I can understand why. This song has a lot going on melodically and after this first listen I'm expecting it to be one of the fan favorites. There, I said it. I
think that there was something about it that occasionally made me think of
Voices. I can't really put my finger on what it was though. It could have been the song structure.
6. Behind The VeilThis starts out slow and dramatic but as it turns out it's not your usual ballad after all (none of the songs on the album are). James delivers yet another solid performance and both Rudess and Myung brought their A-games. I'm not sure what I would compare this song to though. One of the songs here (somewhere in the middle of the album) featured a keyboard sound that made me think of one of Jordan's solos in
Blind Faith. It could have been this song but to be honest I don't remember. Sorry. :/
7. Surrender To ReasonAnother promising song that I think that a lot of people will come to like. Right around here it was getting harder and harder to keep the songs and all the impressions they kept bombarding me with separated in my head. I can't really remember a lot of things that stood out in particular but I
think that a lot of the song's atmosphere comes from Rudess' playing (and Petrucci using his acoustic guitar to stuff chocolate cake in our ears).
8. Along For The RideAnother cool song. When I first read the title I thought it would be pretty funny if this was somehow related to
The Count Of Tuscany. It's not, but the funny thing is that before the instruments came in there was this sound that made me think of TCOT's fading outro sound. Anyhow, the way I remember this song it's kind of alternating between pretty straightforward, melodic verses and sections with cool riffs. Jordan brings out the sound from his solo in
Beneath The Surface. A lot is spinning around in my head right now and I don't know if there really is a difference or if the non-optimal sound system in the listening room was playing tricks on me but when I heard it I thought that "this is the
Beneath The Surface sound mixed with some pan flute sound". I can't wait to hear it again so I can compare it to BTS and see if I'm actually right about that. I'm probably not though.
9. Illumination TheoryThe epic. There are a lot of cool riffs going on and I if I recall correctly parts of the second movement made me think of
Bridges In The Sky. The majority of this song is actually instrumental and there's a break in the middle of the song, sort of like the one in
The Count of Tuscany but less melodic (the way I remember it it's more or less only warping, morphing sounds with no real tone and I seem to also remember... wind chimes). After a little while the string section starts playing though and the arrangement is quite beautiful. I'm almost sure that I heard something that resembled Jordan's solo sound from
Blind Faith in this song but I could of course be dead wrong about that. The final part of the song (after the break) is quite epic indeed but I won't spoil it by talking too much about it, especially not since this wall of text will probably turn out to be pretty inaccurate. You can't say that I didn't warn you about that though.
I'm not going to talk about what I think of the album at the moment. What I can say though is that this album doesn't really sound like any of the other albums. It
is different, but it's still "
Dream Theater". If I
had to try to describe my first impressions of the album by referring to other DT albums I would have to say that the songwriting on DT12 makes me think of some kind of cross-breed between
Images And Words and
Awake with a "modern DT twist"... or something like that.
This is definitely not a review of the album or anything even remotely similar to that. I'll probably listen to the album 10 to 20 times before I even start thinking of evaluating the content (or ranking it). I just wanted to share as much as possible since I know that a lot of you are thirsting for information just as much as I am (was?).
Topic: My thoughts on 'Dream Theater' (***SPOILERS***) (Read 153595 times)
