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

[Mladen]

My brother Homer, he's all the hope we need! 

[Peter Mc]

I'm guessing the Empire are the baddies based on the fact that their leader is called Nefarious (or however you spell it!) They also have noise machines and stop people from making music. Rebels play music, like our heroes Dream Theater, and appear to be from Long Island, also like our heroes so am guessing they are the goodies.

I am guessing it isn't quite that simple.

Agreed, I was going to say that there will probably be a bit more to it if JP has spent so long putting the story together. I just didn't want to go on too much. I would broadly expect Ravenskill Rebels to be the goodies though saving the day with their real music.

[Prog Snob]

I just found a leak of the complete Astonishing character list, oops.....

Katniss 

[Zydar]

My brother Homer, he's all the hope we need! 

"There walks a God among us..."

[chego_voice]

My brother Homer, he's all the hope we need! 

"There walks a God among us..."

"Who's seen the donuts on the stoooore"

[Lucien]

I just found a leak of the complete Astonishing character list, oops.....

Honestly we need to have DT and DT collaborate for a Ziltoid project

[dparrott]

I think Lord Nafaryus is definitely a reworded cover of duran duran's Notorious.

NA....NA.....NAFARYUS! 

[dparrott]

So I read most of the posts in this thread, but I am still a little confused. Is The Northern Empire the "good" side? Or is Ravenskill? Wich one is the leading side right now?
Maybe I understood something totally wrong. And if there are any informations or speculations on wich side is the good, bad or leading one: on what are they based?

If we believe the point of view presented in "The Gift of Music", then the Empire is the bad side and Ravenskill is the good side.

   So I chose the wrong side???  But...but...the "path" website said GNE was the good side! 

[r3d86]

How much will we have to wait until another update? I want to know anything new!

[Kotowboy]

What if they release one more "single" before the album and the two videos on the Astonishing page are both of the music videos ?

[r3d86]

What if they release one more "single" before the album and the two videos on the Astonishing page are both of the music videos ?

It would be great! But maybe they need to unveil some other character before releasing another song.

[Train of Naught]

You got a character # in mind?

[CDrice]

You got a character # in mind?

I don't think which one they reveal really matter, but the clock is ticking so they really should get done with it as fast as possible.

 

[paulstfu]

I just found a leak of the complete Astonishing character list, oops.....

Honestly we need to have DT and DT collaborate for a Ziltoid project

"The Astonishing Ziltoid Show (With even more guitar wankery and farts!"


PS: It was surely an astonishing moment when I realized my 2 favorite artists were DT 

[Kotowboy]

PS: It was surely an astonishing moment when I realized my 2 favorite artists were DT 

I thought you said 3. I was like who is the 3rd one ? Derek Trucks ?

[hefdaddy42]

Derek Trucks is a different kind of awesome.

[r3d86]

You got a character # in mind?

but the clock is ticking

 

You have some hint there (?)

[Podaar]

Derek Trucks is a different kind of awesome.

No truer words.

[jsbru]

I'm hoping for a twist ending or some kind of profound, shocking thing to happen with "Astonishing." You can't have a title track like that closing the album and not have something really cool and unexpected.

At the very least, I'm really hoping for a non-cliche ending. It would be a little disappointing to me if the album ended with " the empire was overthrown, the nomacs were shut down, the rebels control the land, everyone lived happily ever after." Maybe I'm in the minority there, but I don't know a good concept album that had a perfectly happy, wrapped up ending.

I mean the friggen album is called "The Astonishing." I'M JUST SO INTRIGUED and maybe that's why I'm hoping for something unexpected.

It also seems like DT is going to transcend the actual music and instrumentals in this album by really applying the concept to the way they write and create the music. And I don't just mean spoken tracks (god forbid), and "oh this parts heavy cuz he's evil," or "oh this parts soft because she's a good guy." I'm keeping my doubts but I'm just hoping they create something new and experiment with the way they portray the concept here.

I have money on an introspective ending where, after the final battle is all over the survivors look within themselves and realize that they were free all along, and their shackles of NOMAC noise were nothing but their imagination fueled by self-doubt and a warlike mentality.    And the people that led them into battle on both sides were just attention-seeking, egotistical whores that got a lot of people killed and produced negative value for society as a whole.

And then everyone from both sides decides to settle down and live a modest life, and get their kicks from an occasional beer and some good music instead of the incessant search for existential validation through more and more socio-political power and moralistic righteousness.

[thosava]

In the interview with JP he was comparing the NOMACs to electronic music, and how humans may not be making music anymore in the future. It would surprize me if the album is supposed to be an allegory of how Dream Theaters music is the "correct" one, and electronic music is "wrong" og bad. It would be more satisfying if both sides, in the end can agree that different people prefer kinds of music.

[Peter Mc]

Don't think he was quite comparing the NOMACS to electronic music, he's talking about music which is made by machines, not humans. He's saying that music is made more and more these days on computers and taking that to the extreme by saying "what if, in the future, there was no human involvement and computers were making music on their own?" Can't see the album finishing with everyone agreeing that computer generated music is just as good as music composed by people. If that was the case both sides would have to keep saying "in my opinion" all the way through the lyrics!

[jsbru]

Yeah, it's not like DT has never used electronics in their music.  They've always had a keyboard player, which is by definition, electronic music.  And then they have used sound sampling plenty of times before.  And on ADTOE, Petrucci programmed in the drum tracks while they were looking for a drummer.

I mean, it's still 100 times more complex than a lot of the crap that passes for modern-day EDM (which is mostly ghost-written anyway).  But I don't think Petrucci meant electronic music produced by humans with that comment...I think he was more talking about music that was composed by a machine algorithm (or maybe a cut n' paste pop-song algorithm that the record industry pushes on people).

[theseoafs]

I really doubt the message of the album will be "electronic music is bad".  That would be pretty stupid.

[Nomaniac]

I just found a leak of the complete Astonishing character list, oops.....

Oh that is classic!!!

[thosava]

Yeah, thats true.

On the other hand:
NOMACs are noise machines.
Noise machines make noise music.
Noise music is an actual music genre.
Some people enjoy noise music.
DT is saying that noise music is bad.
DT implies that their music is better than other kinds of music.
Q.E.D.

edit: changed noice to noise.

 

[RoadTrain_of Thought]

DT is saying that noice music is bad.

But isn't noice music like...noice.

[jakepriest]

Noice theory.

[Bertielee]

DT is saying that noice music is bad.

But isn't noice music like...noice.

Noice, it icen't!

[Prog Snob]

Soime peoiple shoiuld think twoice befoire hitting the poist buttoin.

[thosava]

Noiw i saiw oit. Oit's wroitten noise noit noice.

[OleMP]

I'm guessing the Empire are the baddies based on the fact that their leader is called Nefarious (or however you spell it!) They also have noise machines and stop people from making music. Rebels play music, like our heroes Dream Theater, and appear to be from Long Island, also like our heroes so am guessing they are the goodies.

If they are stopping people like Justin Bieber they're not entirely evil though.

[RMGadelha]

It seems that all of the thursday updates are now on Friday. At least Gabriel was revealed on a Friday.

[r3d86]

I'm guessing the Empire are the baddies based on the fact that their leader is called Nefarious (or however you spell it!) They also have noise machines and stop people from making music. Rebels play music, like our heroes Dream Theater, and appear to be from Long Island, also like our heroes so am guessing they are the goodies.

If they are stopping people like Justin Bieber they're not entirely evil though.

Indeed! Go Sean Connery! 

[Dream Team]

So Petrucci and Rudess wrote the music, but I'm interested to see if they still split the songwriting credits 5 ways like the past few albums.

[wolven74]

Is anyone else hoping for some repeated themes throughout the story, be they musical or lyrical, or both? I listened to SFAM recently and remember hearing a lot of repeated themes, like home repeating a theme from Metropolis Pt 1 (though I realize SFAM was the sequel to that song, so repeating a theme from it was probably inevitable)