10. A New Beginning
I'm not as in love with this track as many are - the outro's nice but it's not a highlight of the album for me, and a couple of moments are that little bit grating - but there's still enough interesting stuff in there to hold me. Squeezes a lot of genres into that first half, and the chorus is lovely.
9. A Tempting Offer
Like A Saviour in the Square (which we'll get to later), A Tempting Offer is both a great example of musical storytelling and a great example of being a song. It's the kind of track you'd never get on any other DT album; The Astonishing at its most Astonishing-y.
8. Heaven's Cove
Creative, interesting, pretty, looming and intense - Heaven's Cove covers an impressive amount of ground in four minutes, but covers it effortlessly. It doesn't feel attention deficit - it's not "this and this and how about this," it's "this, then this, therefore this." Very well-written, and I love that The Astonishing has given DT a chance to play around with unorthodox structures. Big instrumental intro with a short verse at the end is an interesting shape, and not something I'd have expected them to do, but I'm glad they did and that it sounded like this.
7. A Life Left Behind
The intro's the bit to write home about, but the rest's up to snuff, too - reminds me a lot of When Your Time Has Come.
5&6. Dystopian Overture / The Gift of Music
As close as the album comes to standard Dream Theater fare, bar Moment of Betrayal - but both tracks still carry a bit of a twist. Dystopian Overture is a welcome addition to the legion of DT overtures, and although they're two very different tracks, if they hadn't released The Gift of Music on its own a couple of months before the street date I don't think I'd be able to prise the two apart in my head. Few moments on the album are as amazing as when the choir arrives in TGoM. What happens to those guys?!
4. Ravenskill
So atmospheric, so filmic - and it carries that "film noir" ambience right the way through, even after the riff kicks in. An incredibly well-judged song. I do wish the ending sounded a little less "DEFAULT ASTONISHING EPIC," but it's a minor qualm, and one that bothers me less and less the more I listen to it. Good song.
2&3. A Saviour in the Square / When Your Time Has Come
A proper, bona-fide two-parter. Both are brilliant, both are very distinctive, neither would work without the other, and A Saviour in the Square makes particularly good use of the album's narrative format to indulge in some musical storytelling. The serenity of the intro, the sudden shift as Lord Nafaryus arrives, the brief stab of NOMACs, the single best use of the Act of Faythe theme. When Your Time Has Come doesn't make use of the concept in the same way, but it's a truly wonderful song and only marginally the lesser of the pair. This double-header is the single best example of what The Astonishing has to offer; everything I hoped the album might be.
1. Three Days
Berserk. Outrageous. Catchy as all sin. The issue I have with The Astonishing is that although it's comfortably Dream Theater's most experimental album, there's so much of it that much of the music starts to feel kind of indistinct. Three Days, however, arrived just as my attention was flagging, it pummeled me for four minutes, then disappeared in a maelstrom of madcap choral jazz. Top drawer.
Sorry, disc two. Still! Heaven's Cove, am I right?
Other good tracks: The Answer (short but sweet), Lord Nafaryus (love the tango stuff), Brother Can You Hear Me (a million miles from their comfort zone, total Les Mis), Chosen (amazing on its own but kills the pace), Moment of Betrayal (quintessential DT), The Path That Divides (great chorus), The Walking Shadow (the bit with the Faythe theme is great), Hymn of a Thousand Voices (points for originality).
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