I have to get this off my chest: The Astonishing is extremely disappointing and underwhelming. In fact, it is very, very bad. I'm not saying this to provoke people or to anger them. Some background: I have been a DT fan for some time.
My favorite DT period---the DT Golden Years, if you will---is the album arc from Scenes From a Memory to Octavarium. After Octavarium, things started turning for the worse. Systematic Chaos, while it was a great album, was missing something. Something I cannot quite put my finger on, but whatever it was, it prevented it from reaching the heights that DT's previous albums had reached. BC&SL, while also an enjoyable album, was missing something, perhaps combined with a dose of lethargy, which left me quietly hoping they would refresh to deliver another great album in the future.
ADToE was actually quite good, and, besides some forgettable tracks (Build Me Up, Beneath the Surface, some parts of Outcry), had some stellar ones (e.g. Lost Not Forgotten, Breaking All Illusions). Then the self-titled album came out, and I was largely disappointed. The lethargy was back, and the creative spark was largely gone such that the album was a bit of a chore to get through, particularly Illumination Theory (though it did have some interesting sections).
The new album, however, is painful to listen to. I have given it 4 or so listens and still the tracks seem to fade into one another, blending into an indistinguishable gray mush of mediocrity. Gone are interesting instrumental sections and in are uninteresting choruses and sections that are 3 parts sappy, 3 parts cheesy, 3 parts pretentious, and 6 parts forgettable. The only tracks that are listenable and somewhat enjoyable are Moment of Betryal and The Gift of Music, but even these are weak. The rest is all so featureless, so forced, so uninspired, so mediocre, so forgettable. It is also missing a progressive element to it---it seems to be mediocre pop ballads with a second or two of some somewhat interesting riffing, quickly to revert back into the pop ballad phase. And Mike Mangini, as talented as he is, seems utterly absent, sounding like a hired gun rather than the band's rhythm heartbeat. It also doesn't help that the story is so uninteresting and dull, and, like the musical elements on display, utterly mediocre and forgettable.
I fear that every new album DT produces (sans ADToE) is one more piece of evidence that goes to show that Portnoy was right and that DT needed a break to refresh. I am very disappointed and hope that they can regain the elements that made Dream Theater great on the next album. For this cycle, it pains me to say that it is sad to see a once-great band be reduced to such a mediocre thing.
Topic: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread (Read 519494 times)
