*Official* The Astonishing discussion thread

[bosk1]

There is not second video...yet.

[theanalogkid7]

There is not second video...yet.

I guess we'll see... yes, we shall see. 

[olddtfan51@gmail.com]

I think this is the best Album I have heard in a long time.It's completely different from anything they have done. The story keeps me interested and the music is great. I know it's a lot to take in but I think that is what will make it good for repeted listens. There will always be something new to find.

[pringkaarwanda]

In which moments can I hear Richard Chycki's speaking as Lord Nafaryus?

I guess its in Losing Faythe. You can hear a man and women cry in the first line, it must be Nafaryus & Arabelle 

[adastra]

Music calmed your soul just lika a drug
Remember bug?

Father is it true
Bug was always you?

What is Bug is it Lord Nafaryus's band or sumthing... i'm so lost...

[YOWspotter]

I didn't read the entire thread and I don't yet have the record. I'm curious though; given that I'm more a fan of DT's heavier, metal aspects, will this record do anything for me?

[Zydar]

Music calmed your soul just lika a drug
Remember bug?

Father is it true
Bug was always you?

What is Bug is it Lord Nafaryus's band or sumthing... i'm so lost...

Bug was Nafaryus' nickname as a boy.

"As a very young boy, Nafaryus was always zipping in and out of the palace halls and buzzing around his father's feet trying to get the busy Emperor's attention (hence the nickname ‘BUG')" / from the Astonishing site.

[RoadTrain_of Thought]

Music calmed your soul just lika a drug
Remember bug?

Father is it true
Bug was always you?

What is Bug is it Lord Nafaryus's band or sumthing... i'm so lost...

It is all explained in the website. BUG is Daddy Naf's nickname given to him by his father.

[Enigmachine]

Music calmed your soul just lika a drug
Remember bug?

Father is it true
Bug was always you?

What is Bug is it Lord Nafaryus's band or sumthing... i'm so lost...

His childhood nickname. I got confused as well at first.

I didn't read the entire thread and I don't yet have the record. I'm curious though; given that I'm more a fan of DT's heavier, metal aspects, will this record do anything for me?

If you aren't a fan of the ballads or poppier songs at all, probably not much. Listen to it though, you may like it.

[lovethedrake]

I am in the camp of people who wanted something different as I think they went majorly downhill after train of thought.  However, it's not fair to question the people who are critiquing the album and just because dream theater went out on a limb and did something unique doesn't make it void of constructive critiquing.

With that said, I think it's an incredibly refreshing album and by far the best thing they have done since Sdoit.  I don't think it's as brilliantly tight at sfam due to a few too many mediocre ballads.  It's a beautiful yet flawed album that does reveal its many qualities upon repeat listens.  It far exceeded my lofty expectations despite it being a bit too long and having somewhat disjointed and rushed finish on act 2.

I love the album but I think many of the criticisms are fair.  Act 1 is incredible though.  I am hoping act 2 just takes some more time to grow.

[adastra]

But i don't understand this bit;

"Father is it true
Bug was always you?"

Where had Faythe heard about bug?    I first understood that Faythe was listening to music made by BUG with the Ipod she had found.
And she was suprised that BUG was his father.

EDIT: oh.... I read the website... The music player belonged to Bug

[Zydar]

But i don't understand this bit;

"Father is it true
Bug was always you?"

Where had Faythe heard about bug?    I first understood that Faythe was listening to music made by BUG with the Ipod she had found.
And she was suprised that BUG was his father.

Again, from the Astonishing site.

"It had a strange engraving on the back that simply said, “To BUG”. She didn't know what it meant but that never mattered to her."

https://www.dreamtheater.net/theastonishingtracks

[YOWspotter]

If you aren't a fan of the ballads or poppier songs at all, probably not much. Listen to it though, you may like it.

I appreciate the info. I intend on buying the record regardless, but this sets me up nicely. I love the ballads, the pop stuff a bit less, but I should be OK with this one.

[LCArenas]

There's a scream at the end of "My Last Farewell" but I can't quite tell who's supposed to be screaming it. Is it Gabriel or Faythe?

[wolven74]

So yesterday I listened to my first spin through the iTunes download of the album and loved the music, loved the emotion in James' vocals. Loved the melodies throughout. Listened more for the music than the story, as I had also ordered a "hardcopy" so I could have the lyrics in the booklet. I didn't have the lyrics until later in the day and didn't have time to give it another spin. I just finished my second spin all the way through--this time with lyrics. I have one question, given the context of the story: Did anyone else shed some tears during that ONW riff? Am I the only one? God that opening has got to be my favorite thing DT has ever done. Fucking beautiful.

This album as a whole.... WOW... just fucking WOW!! 

[RoadTrain_of Thought]

There's a scream at the end of "My Last Farewell" but I can't quite tell who's supposed to be screaming it. Is it Gabriel or Faythe?

It's Gabriel. But once again LOOK AT THE GODDAMN SITE

[TheCountOfNYC]

I just finished listening to the album for the first time.

[pcs90]

Seriously, I know it's been said like 100 times, but...
READ THE SITE.
It answers so many questions and elaborates on a lot of things only briefly touched on in the lyrics. There's more information on each character as well so it really helps you understand everything. Read the site, listen again and if you're confused on something it will probably make sense at that point.

[KevShmev]

The more I listen, the more I realize that this is definitely gonna be a "whole is better than the sum of its parts" kinda album.  That is not to say that there aren't some great songs here; there are.  But this is obviously meant to be listened to as a whole (Captain Obvious, I know ).  Even though I have the physical CDs, I already burned the whole thing on to one single CD for my car and plan to live with it for a while and just let it play from start to finish whenever I drive anywhere until I really know all of it. 

[Ben_Jamin]

We should have a sticky to the astonishing page as too many  questions are being asked when it's available on the bands website.  Just a suggestion.

Gonna enjoy a nice glass of good whiskey and listen again.

[wideworldofmike]

-The scream:  This is the only part of the album where I feel like they kind of "dropped the ball" on presenting the story.  That scream is supposed to be something huge.  And while James does it justice with his voice, this is the one area where I feel like some vocal effects were necessary to portray it as something truly otherworldly that deafened Daryus.  Oh well.

I though about this too, but I think the irony would be that its a scream that's meant to damage his vocal cords, so JL may have opted to not damage his? Only explanation I could think of to spin it.

[CDrice]

-The scream:  This is the only part of the album where I feel like they kind of "dropped the ball" on presenting the story.  That scream is supposed to be something huge.  And while James does it justice with his voice, this is the one area where I feel like some vocal effects were necessary to portray it as something truly otherworldly that deafened Daryus.  Oh well.

I though about this too, but I think the irony would be that its a scream that's meant to damage his vocal cords, so JL may have opted to not damage his? Only explanation I could think of to spin it.

Yeah, but then you have ''YOU MURDERER'', so I don't know.

[NoseofNicko]

Btw, does this part from Dystopian Overture sound really familiar to anyone else:

https://vocaroo.com/i/s0WnqDoo2Pab

?

Anyone?

[pcs90]

-The scream:  This is the only part of the album where I feel like they kind of "dropped the ball" on presenting the story.  That scream is supposed to be something huge.  And while James does it justice with his voice, this is the one area where I feel like some vocal effects were necessary to portray it as something truly otherworldly that deafened Daryus.  Oh well.

I though about this too, but I think the irony would be that its a scream that's meant to damage his vocal cords, so JL may have opted to not damage his? Only explanation I could think of to spin it.

James wouldn't have to damage his, though. Like, they could use the same scream but just add effects to it to make it more powerful and dramatic.

[darkshade]

Finishing up the second disc right now. Listened to disc 1 yesterday. I liked disc 2 more than disc 1 on first listen. The second disc is heavier, but it's all a lot of music so I definitely need more time with it. It's definitely more interesting to me than DT12, and I'll be likely to return to this more often. It seems like a grower, which is usually a good thing for DT. Not much of a fan of the lyrics, and I don't really care about the story, but I never cared about the story from SFAM either, so *shrugs*.

Anyone else feel like they're listening to a late-90s Flower Kings album when listening to The Astonishing, but with JP's chops, JLB vocals, and way heavier at times, but also has uplifting parts not very far away from how I could see TFK playing them; a nice 20+ minute epic at the end of disc 2 (like at the end of TFK's Stardust We Are) would have put this album over the top.

My only gripe is that I've slowly been disliking that Mangini-era guitar sound with Jordan's string sounds doubling them. It's all over this album, but isn't as bad as on DT12.

Illumination Theory tease at the beginning of disc 2 on 2285 Entr'acte???

[TL]

Man, I'm glad I didn't bank on getting this on Canadian Amazon. They still don't have a listing outside of a $190 vinyl "Import".
It's almost comical how little of a shit Amazon gives about the Canadian market.

Edit: It's not even a question of 'obscurity'. They have a prominent listing for Steven Wilson's new thing in New Releases.

[TheGreatPretender]

Man, I'm glad I didn't bank on getting this on Canadian Amazon. They still don't have a listing outside of a $190 vinyl "Import".
It's almost comical how little of a shit Amazon gives about the Canadian market.

Edit: It's not even a question of 'obscurity'. They have a prominent listing for Steven Wilson's new thing in New Releases.

Amazon is good for stuff that they already have lying around in their warehouse. I've had packages delivered to my door the day I ordered them, or on the weekends, but pre-ordering anything, you can flip a coin as to whether it will be delayed or not.

[Darkstarshades]

I'm fine with DT staying away from satanic music like metal.

[TheGreatPretender]

I'm fine with DT staying away from satanic music like metal.

Your sentence is like a prog song, you can spend all day dissecting it for which part is sarcastic and which isn't.

[Darkstarshades]

 
Being serious again.
Probably my greatest issue with the album is 2285 entr'acte being way, waaay too short just for how good it is, and feeling more like an ending to the first CD than an intro to the second one.

Btw, it has a Lord of the Rings goes Nightmare before christmas War inside my head vibe,

[DeanTheater]

What a bloody Brilliant effort!   I have listened through 2 times.   First impressions are that JLB totally OWNS!  JP has performed some of his most emotional yet technical stuff in a while.

Regarding, the middle of ACT 1,  I dont believe there have been a better stretch of songs on a DT album since maybe SDOIT.  A better Life, When you Time has come, Act of Faythe, Brother, Can you hear me, A Life Left Behind (possibly my favorite so far), into Ravenskill, (which from reading the posts is higly underrated thus far.  Ravenskill gave me goosies!.  Give this song some love, people!

An amazing effort, although, alot of work for the listener.   But, it is a labor fucking LOVE.  Great job DT.

[craig1928]

biggest goosebumps moment?

for me it's the middle of astonishing when the drums back kick in

"Because of you I live again
Now I can be a voice for change"

ahhhh I love this album

[OleMP]

Yeah, I think I have to concur. Up until now he's merely been a disappointing reminder of what's lost. Now I'm considering him a detriment, despite perhaps being the most gifted one in an amazingly talented band.

I really don't want to harp on this too long, but yeah, I had the same thought when I was listening to the album. Especially for the softer sections, subtle, organic drumming would have been wondrous and added so much to the songs. But it just stays at the same "bup ... chick", the whole time.

Yes, because When Your Time Has Come and Act of Faythe has "bup...chick" drumming all over. Maybe I am just imagining all those ghost notes.

You are not imagining anything of course, but the Mangini haters/Portnoylovers aren't listening for anything else. It's getting to the point of being so ridiculous that I can't take any of them seriously anymore.

[TL]

Man, I'm glad I didn't bank on getting this on Canadian Amazon. They still don't have a listing outside of a $190 vinyl "Import".
It's almost comical how little of a shit Amazon gives about the Canadian market.

Edit: It's not even a question of 'obscurity'. They have a prominent listing for Steven Wilson's new thing in New Releases.

Amazon is good for stuff that they already have lying around in their warehouse. I've had packages delivered to my door the day I ordered them, or on the weekends, but pre-ordering anything, you can flip a coin as to whether it will be delayed or not.

That's my experience with pre-ordering from them as well.

In this case though, I mean they literally don't have a listing for this CD on their Canadian site. It's not just 'to be released' or 'out of stock'. It's not there at all. Fortunately, I decided to give my business to a local music shop instead.

[Nel]

Just bought the album. I haven't listened yet, but it's already a 0/10 for being a digipak.