It's hard for me to find time to sit down and listen to The Astonishing in full, and I still dont really know the album all that well. I feel like it's easy for me to break it down into several small chunks, like 3-5 songs at a time. Any suggestions on what would be good combinations ?
Personally, if I had to pick a favorite, standout section of the album, it would be the run of songs in Act I from Ravenskill through A New Beginning. That is a good combo to get a good flavor for both the music and the story.
To me, some of the "chunks" that I feel have good flow and I am beginning to gain the most familiarity are:
-Act I, tracks 1-8 (yeah, I know that is a LONG stretch, but it makes logical sense in terms of story, and has a good pacing; to me, the pacing drops off a bit at Act of Faythe).
-Act I, tracks 14-19 (which is what I recommended above)
-Act II, tracks 1-5 (sets up the first half of Act II nicely and has really good flow)
-Act II, tracks 7-10 (these songs just feel right as one unit, and are unified by the action of the story)
-Act II, tracks 11-14 (as with the previous section, this section is very unified in terms of the action of the story; music-wise, it is less intense and doesn't feel as climactic as I would normally expect for the conclusion of an album. But it fits together well, so to respond to your question about logical "chunks," this one makes sense in terms of helping digest the story)