Put in The Astonishing for the first time in about a year this weekend while sitting around waiting for the Porcupine Tree show to start. This album is pure musical genius. Gets better with age.
My post early in this thread stated I'd rate it my 4th favorite DT album. I have to move it up to 3 at this point. I usually don't care whether people like the same music as I do, but for whatever reason, I take the negative reception this album faced personally. It's not that far removed from Metropolis 2 stylistically--an album that gets an almost universally positive reaction from DT fans. If anything, the songwriting on this is more concise and melodic, and there's less meandering through aimless hyper-progressive jams, which have their place in DT's repertoire, of course, but I think they have a tendency to overdo them and have them in far too many songs just for the sake of having them, even if it doesn't fit from a songwriting perspective. This is a stunning and dynamic epic, with multiple layers, traversing multiple styles, but the melodic hooks are simple and easy to digest. Some specific highlights:
- I think Petrucci's outro solo in A New Beginning is possibly the best of his entire career. Helps that the underlying chord progression lays a fantastic foundation.
- The much-maligned second act actually finishes very strong. Losing Fayth through A New World is an incredibly epic and stunning finale, and Hymn of a Thousand Voices is one of the most beautiful snippets of music this band has ever written!
- I think this is Mangini's best album with the band, too. His style of drumming matches this style of music really well. There's a couple of fills in here that are absolutely astounding.
- David Campbell's orchestration is something to behold. It really gives this album sonic depth, even compared to other DT albums/songs that used orchestra.
This is DT at their creative peak, and 100 years from now, will be looked upon as their crowning achievement. Perhaps an album before its time. Or maybe after it's time. Since I really think the peak of rock music composition and listenership occurred during the 70s, when people's attention spans were not chewed up by a constant din of technological stimuli like social media and cell phones. Perhaps this album belongs in the era of The Who's Tommy, Yes's Tales of Topographic Oceans, Rush's 2112, or Genesis's Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. I think it surpasses all four of those albums though, and stands on its own as one of the best concept albums ever written. This isn't an album that delivers instantly on first listen. Like a lot of good prog rock, it has to be digested with patience and discretion. And once it is, its melodic story really comes to life.