I am, however, intrigued why Black Clouds is "good" in your eyes over say their self-titled or Octavarium.
The short answer is, I just don't feel an emotional connection to much of Black Clouds...
Thanks for that answer, Bosk! We'll definitely agree on a lot of points about that album, but I find it's still a bit stronger than Octavarium. But I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.
And before I continue on with the next batch of comments, I'll mention, because of this thread
I've re-listened to The Astonishing based on the suggestions on what to listen to here.
While I'm not going to go whole-hog about the album, I will concede the point that the album does not really feel like a movie score as so much a theatrical production. While I still dislike the story,
I think the reasoning to why I felt it was a score was because - and wait for it - it struggles to be a theatrical production.
I listened to the album on Thursday giving me a few days to think about this. My main idea is that, unlike say, a theatrical play (or let's take Pain of Salvation's BE since we've brought it up before), there's little variation in emotion or story from LaBrie. It's not that he did a bad job at singing - but unlike a production playing out or being performed, I feel like The Astonishing is more narrated. There's little hints of emotion and conveying of the story through LaBrie and as such, takes me out of the "theatrical production" mindset.
And I'm not ragging on LaBrie. I
KNOW he can convey emotion and storytelling properly. See: The Human Equation album, Vacant, Beneath the Surface, A Nightmare to Remember, et al. Either his direction or the material wasn't good enough for him to tell it properly.
That being said, thematically, the album works. I hear the music less like a soundtrack and more like a production. I still don't think it's a great job at it, but if I had given The Astonishing a 3/10, I'd bump it now to a 5/10 (I really haven't thought about ranking the album out of 10. I'm just giving you folks an idea to what listening to an album again with open ears can do).
Anyway, this thread was supposed to be about Train of Thought so. . .