Dream Theater: The Astonishing (now with moment of betrayal!)

[mike099]

Yea I saw something like this on reddit: People who were expecting The Dark Eternal Night pt. 2 will be disappointed.

Well I guess everyone will be disappointed then because who the fuck expected The Dark Eternal Night pt. 2?

This made me laugh more than it should have.

Hey, I like Dark Eternal night musically and most of SC musically.  I am hoping the next cd will be like Train of Thought meets SC.

[mike099]

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-astonishing-mw0002900305

Another very good review - 4 out of 5. People at allmusic.com are great reviewers, and Thom Jurek is the second best of the lot, imo.

"Though it may be grandiose to say, like opera, The Astonishing shouldn't be disassembled, but judged holistically. It was planned as an immersive, one-sitting listening experience. As demanding as it is, the story and music are worth the effort. Dream Theater have invested in the "album" concept (and in listeners' attention spans) even as the music biz doubles down on the notion that long-players are merely envelopes to hold singles."

Funny how the guy mentioned the two songs out already and titled one as 'The Spirit of music'

[ResultsMayVary]

I'm really considering getting the HDtracks version now.

[Bertielee]

I got it, guys! Total immersion and back in 2h10mn!

B.Lee

[aurorablind]

SPOILERS

Sorry if my English isnt that good.. Here goes:

Okey, I`ve listened through this album once. I almost pissed myself when I saw the little carboard paggage in my mailbox after work!
I have to admit, I did listen to a couple of tracks when the whole "website that shouldn`t have streamed the album"-thing unfolded. Im glad that I waited to listen to the whole thing until today.

This album is very hard to take in after just one listen. It`s 34 songs and over two hours goddammit!
But hell.. Im left with so many impressions.

I wont go through every song, and I have to listen to it at least three or four times until I conclude on how well it sits compared to the rest of their catalogue.

My first impression is: WOW. What an album. So much music! So melodic! So..many ballads..
Im a first and foremost a prog-guy. Im happy this isnt the full blown metal-concept-wank-fest-album, but I have to admit that after the first listen I feel that some parts of the album felt kind of slow. NOT bad, but theres a lot of slow, melodic moments. That may not be a bad thing after I`ve listened to it a couple of times, but it was a lot more of that than I expected.

I`ll make a short list of good/not as good moments I noticed during listening.


Not as good (the nitpicking):
- After my first listen the album moves a bit slowly at points. Melodically its GREAT, but at some points I wish it was more dynamic, musically. Overall, this album is the softest theyve done, so it`s a bit unusual. This may change however!
- NOMACS - underused in the story? I did not read the lyrics for the entire thing. I had the album playing on the stereo, and at some points I had to leave the booklet. I was almost expecting some kind of Gabriel/NOMAC-battle 
They generally didn`t seem as the big threat that I thought after seeing the artwork and reading all the info. The NOMAC
tracks are kind of..irritating. "Descent" is a cool intro, and I like "Power Down". The other tracks are just noise (well..they are noise machines..).
- When your time has come. Isn`t this supposed to be when Gabriel sings to the Empire? Well.. I don`t really care for that song to much. However.. If I lived in a world when I had to listen to those fucking NOMACS all day, that song would probably have been the best song ever..

GOOD:
- Diversity: There is SO much to take in. Oh my god.. And stylistically it is so varied. Definitely the most musically interresting since SDOIT.
- James fucking LaBrie. Holy shit.. Im so glad that he finally got HIS album. There is so many amazing vocal-parts, and there is so much singing on this album! I really hope he gets a lot of praise for this, because he totally deserves it,
- Piano. Jordan shines when he plays piano, we all know that, and this album really proves how good he is, without the overwhelming synth-patch-shifting he usually does on DT-stuff.
- Production. The most organic theyve done in years. Yes, you can nitpick and say that the drums sound a bit mechanical, but that has a lot to do with MM`s playing style. The drums fit well in the mix most places. Actually, the two songs I think they are too much "in your face" is "The gift of music" and "Moment of betrayal".
Im also so glad they focused so much on organic instruments. Real strings, real brass, real piano, real B3-organ.. fantastic!
- New stuff. Finally, after so many years of making "DT-sounding albums" they truly experimented with styles. Lord Nafaryus, Three Days and A life left behind sound so refreshing! I cant help myself but laugh when the ending to Three Days hits. Its SO FUCKING GOOD, but at the same time tounge-in-cheek and playful. Three Days is probably my favorite song on the album btw.


There is so much to take in, but this is the notes I made during listening. Just laying on the couch and taking it all in was a true pleasure.
This album is like Dream Theater meets Jesus Christ Superstar meets Disney. Theyve really gone all in.

After the first listen, I give it 8,5/10. It may go up, it may go down. However, the first listen was a true pleasure.

[Counselor of Prog]

Mine should be here Friday.  Huzzah!

[Progmetty]

I just heard back from HD Tracks:


If I know our system, i'm sure they have the album set to go online at 12am tomorrow 1/29/2016.  If the album doesn't appear, wait a few minutes, sometimes it can take time for albums to appear. 

Sincerely,
HDTracks Support Team

If you burn the HDtracks FLAC's to a CD; do they lose something or do they still sound better than the released CD?

[Siddhartha]

This album is like Dream Theater meets Jesus Christ Superstar meets Disney.

 I was thinking about Alan Menken during the whole album.

[Sacul]

I just heard back from HD Tracks:


If I know our system, i'm sure they have the album set to go online at 12am tomorrow 1/29/2016.  If the album doesn't appear, wait a few minutes, sometimes it can take time for albums to appear. 

Sincerely,
HDTracks Support Team

If you burn the HDtracks FLAC's to a CD; do they lose something or do they still sound better than the released CD?

Maybe the master would sound better, but that's about it. It's pointless to buy a hi-res file and downgrade it IMO.

[rumborak]

I just heard back from HD Tracks:


If I know our system, i'm sure they have the album set to go online at 12am tomorrow 1/29/2016.  If the album doesn't appear, wait a few minutes, sometimes it can take time for albums to appear. 

Sincerely,
HDTracks Support Team

If you burn the HDtracks FLAC's to a CD; do they lose something or do they still sound better than the released CD?

Yeah, you do. Most HD tracks are 96kHz with 24-bit depth. CD is 48kHz with 16-bit.

[YtseJamittaja]

Damn I can't unhear it anymore, the main theme sounds like Hark the Herald Angels Sing

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Mods:

Can we create another thread? It would be nice having a non-spoiler speculation thread like this one and a full-on spoiler thread for those who have already heard the album and cannot wait to discuss it.

[Mark Levinson Jr.]

I just heard back from HD Tracks:


If I know our system, i'm sure they have the album set to go online at 12am tomorrow 1/29/2016.  If the album doesn't appear, wait a few minutes, sometimes it can take time for albums to appear. 

Sincerely,
HDTracks Support Team

If you burn the HDtracks FLAC's to a CD; do they lose something or do they still sound better than the released CD?

I play a lot of FLACs, but I honestly have never tried to do this. My best guess is that the files get downsampled to meet the requirements of the CD media and it ends up being about the same. I don't really know though.

My car will play DVDs.... audio only (kind of weird)... so I might try to convert the FLACs to WAVs and then burn them to a DVD. Not sure how I'd measure if I succeeded in retaining the higher quality I started with, other than old fashioned listening. I just thought I'd mention this to give you ideas, since I don't really know the answer to what you asked. 

[sfam2112]

Mods:

Can we create another thread? It would be nice having a non-spoiler speculation thread like this one and a full-on spoiler thread for those who have already heard the album and cannot wait to discuss it.

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=45413.0

Would this count?

[RoeDent]

Mods:

Can we create another thread? It would be nice having a non-spoiler speculation thread like this one and a full-on spoiler thread for those who have already heard the album and cannot wait to discuss it.

This. Also, a separate thread for plot discussion (and spoilers) would be a good idea too. Discuss the music in one thread, and what happens to the characters in the other.

[Another_Won]

Mods:

Can we create another thread? It would be nice having a non-spoiler speculation thread like this one and a full-on spoiler thread for those who have already heard the album and cannot wait to discuss it.

This. Also, a separate thread for plot discussion (and spoilers) would be a good idea too. Discuss the music in one thread, and what happens to the characters in the other.

Not a bad idea.  I have a feeling that i'm going to have trouble understanding the plot.  I'm a little slow like that

Am I missing something because I thought anyone could just create whatever thread they wanted, right?

[IDontNotDoThings]

https://www.metalsucks.net/2016/01/27/review-dream-theaters-the-astonishing-will-astonish-the-bands-fans-and-non-fans-alike/

Very funny review... the guy didn´t like DT too much, but he has a pen and a pencil... I mean, he loves The Astonishing.

God, it´s so silly I can´t stop laughing... but it´s good at the same time. 

4.5 out of 5.

But if you are a DT fan (like all of us), it´s 5 out of 5, and you must buy the album twice! 

This was actually the only review I saw before TA's release, because I'm subscribed to this guy's regular channel. 

[RoeDent]

Not a bad idea.  I have a feeling that i'm going to have trouble understanding the plot.  I'm a little slow like that

Am I missing something because I thought anyone could just create whatever thread they wanted, right?

Yes, but it has more authority coming from the mods. It says "This is the official place to discuss [topic]."

[thosava]

Did you order the album from Platekompaniet?

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Mods:

Can we create another thread? It would be nice having a non-spoiler speculation thread like this one and a full-on spoiler thread for those who have already heard the album and cannot wait to discuss it.

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=45413.0

Would this count?

I guess.

I don't think it's good for those who have held back from all previews and everything to read feedback and reviews of the album in BOTH threads. As you can see, we're starting to get some 'my first impressions...' in this thread and that may get us very mixed up.

Hell's gonna break loose probably by tomorrow, and it won't matter that much because we're gonna have 20 new threads related to The Astonishing.

[ResultsMayVary]

Just 20?

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Just 20?

Results may vary.

[Bertielee]

Ok. Needed a break after Act 1. Initial reaction :

First, I'm not as good at writing my impressions as some of you guys are.

Down : too many tracks beginning with piano, making them too samey
            the drum sound still bothers me
            where is JM (as far as creativity is concerned)?

Up : some really nice melodies in there
        JLB is really good and has a lot to sing (paradoxically, I sometime found he had too much to sing)
        many new things never heard before in a DT album

Stand out tracks : The Gift of Music, Lord Nafaryus, A  Savior in the Square, Three Days, The X Aspect, A New Beginning

B.Lee

EDIT : listened to Act 2. Better for me than Act 1, but it might change. Otherwise, it confirms my initial impressions : too much piano-driven tracks and too many slow (for lack of a better word) tracks. A lot of new things explored but also some things heard before in their catalogue. Ja mes is really really good and it is really his album, more so than Rudess's in my opinion. Frankly, no guitar solo has really grabbed my ear so far.

Stand out tracks : Moment of Betrayal, The Path that Divides, Our New World (OMG! What a treat! Much too short anyways), Astonishing

All in all, kuddos to the guys for having tried something like that so late in their career. May not be their best album, but it's really a great effort to expand theit musical universe.

On a side note, I found some mistakes in the booklet.

[theanalogkid7]

Just in case anyone cared, looks like DT updated the page for TA on iTunes.  New photo and track lengths.  Nothing ground breaking, just excited to see it all getting closer and closer.



"Like game of thrones gone metal"... haha

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

That's pretty cool!

[minstrel]

If you burn the HDtracks FLAC's to a CD; do they lose something or do they still sound better than the released CD?

In a nutshell: Whether that will sound better than the released CD depends whether they used a more dynamic master for the HD Tracks FLACs. Otherwise, you will lose some resolution (16 instead of 24 bits and 44.1kHz vs. 96kHz). However, whether you can hear the difference in resolution is a matter of big dispute. Hardly no-one seems to dispute the difference between masters of different dynamics.

You can certainly burn them on an audio CD. However, first you need to convert the files from 24 bit to 16 bits and from 96KHz to 44.1 KHz first. I personally use the command line tool SoX to do this, but there are lots of alternatives.

Next you burn the resulting WAV files to CD, just be sure no 2 second gaps are added by the burner software.

Whether this will sound better than the released CD depends on the dynamic range of the HD Tracks version. We don't seem to know yet whether the HD Tracks version is indeed more dynamic; On the previous Dream Theater releases (SC, BCaSL, ADToE, DT) this was the case, however "Breaking The Fourth Wall" has exactly the same Dynamic Range as the CD.

Therefore, provided the HD Tracks version of The Astonishing is more dynamic than the CD version, it will still be more dynamic after the conversion process to 16/44.1.

In fact I created mp3 versions of the previous four studio albums' HD Tracks versions in 16/44.1, and in my opinion they sound noticably better than the CD version.

[TH1RT3EN]

Mods:

Can we create another thread? It would be nice having a non-spoiler speculation thread like this one and a full-on spoiler thread for those who have already heard the album and cannot wait to discuss it.

This has never been a non-spoiler thread, so I think it's kinda late for that already.

[IdoSC]

Mods:

Can we create another thread? It would be nice having a non-spoiler speculation thread like this one and a full-on spoiler thread for those who have already heard the album and cannot wait to discuss it.

This has never been a non-spoiler thread, so I think it's kinda late for that already.

However it is cluttered with about 220 pages of mostly pre-release, non-spoiler content, making it pretty cluttered to just start talking about post-release information randomly. This is usually how it's done with giant "anticipation threads" over the internet and is a legit suggestion for the mods to consider.

[pcs90]

Yeah, at this point it's probably time for this thread to be locked and new ones created...this was a pre-release thread anyway.

[Jinx]

Didn't know where to put this but ah well. Just a random thought basically with regards to the tour.

False Awakening Suite intro? I understand they wrote it specifically for the opening of the shows and it made a return at the 30th anniversary concerts last year.

Again, just a random, pointless thought

[RoeDent]

False Awakening Suite intro? I understand they wrote it specifically for the opening of the shows and it made a return at the 30th anniversary concerts last year.

Highly unlikely, as they're playing The Astonishing in full and nothing else.

[Peter Mc]

Ok, the album arrived in the mail today. Can't give any kind of full review yet because it's just so huge and I need to take it all in. Some of the melodies are not really hitting me that hard but that is not unusual with DT on the first run through. My instant favourite is probably A Life Left Behind, love the intro which is reminiscent of Liquid Tension Experiment a little to me and love the melody of the song.

There does not appear to be lots of JP guitar solos considering this thing is his baby. Not sure how I feel about that. Could be that I'll notice his playing more with repeat listens. James LaBrie is outstanding on this album. Not that much difference in his voice for the different characters but nevertheless he sounds fantastic.

Overall then, there's lots of bits that I like but also lots I've yet to get to grips with. There is certainly a lot of new ground here for Dream Theater, a lot of stuff you've never heard from them and, as Noxon has been saying all along, this is not just a concept album it is a full on musical/rock opera. Certainly much more of a stage show vibe than SFAM. I'm guessing some fans won't be happy with that but we've all been saying we want them to do something different and they certainly have.

Now need to go back and listen again, this time lights out and no lyrics!

[pcs90]

Guitar solos and/or prominant leads are in all of these tracks:

Dystopian Overture
The Gift of Music
A Better Life
A Savior in the Square
When Your Time Has Come
Chosen
A New Beginning
Moment of Betrayal
Begin Again
The Path That Divides
Our New World

I know there is one more on disc 2 but I forget where. Some of these songs have more than one solo (Our New World, A New Beginning). I wouldn't consider that a lack of guitar solos.

[Panar]

The album is now available on Spotify

[cramx3]

False Awakening Suite intro? I understand they wrote it specifically for the opening of the shows and it made a return at the 30th anniversary concerts last year.

Highly unlikely, as they're playing The Astonishing in full and nothing else.

Agreed. Based on what we know, no encore and it appears will be strictly just The Astonishing performed.