Exactly.
As for the new DT vs the new NMB, while I am as big a fan of Neal and the Neal Morse Band as anybody here, I am taking Distance over Time over The Great Adventure. The Great Adventure is a good record, but Distance over Time is just better to my ears. I joked to a few people that after Haken and NMB gave us good but underwhelming albums this winter, it was up to Dream Theater to save the prog season...and they did. 
I won't disagree, but I think I only would feel that way because of how TGA and d/t are follow-ups of two very different albums that seemed to be on polar ends of how they were received three years ago. On the DT hand, The Astonishing was received with mix reception and has garnered less-than-favorable views since release, where as on the NMB hand, The Similitude Of A Dream was almost universally praised by Neal-fans and prog-fans alike, and it still holds up today.
Following TSOAD was always going to be a tough battle, and for many TGA falls just short of TSOAD, and though many still seem to enjoy it as much, they still hold TSOAD above it. With The Astonishing, many fans' expectations were lowered to the point that anything the band could do might not be worse than TA, so when d/t came out blazing, many fans found renewed faith in the band. Personally speaking, I hadn't really listened to Dream Theater in the last couple of years - TA sort of ruined the momentum of the band for me, so I hadn't really cycled them through my listening as the months and years went by, but d/t has renewed my interest in listening to my second favorite band again! Distance Over Time has been one of their best albums in years, and many fans who have distanced themselves from the band have come back and embraced the new album, which is pretty amazing.
As for where I'm going with all of this, I'd say that by comparison, d/t had a lot going for it where as TGA had a lot to live up to, so fans of both might see d/t as a better album because it surpassed expectations where as TGA might have barely reached them.
As for MP's part in the NMB, he definitely still has a huge hand in arranging and re-arranging the various members' demos, but in the case of TGA, it's a bit more unclear how much his arranging survived the initial sessions, since Neal pretty much chopped up the album and rearranged it into the sequel to TSOAD that we now know. The Making Of documentary wasn't very clear on how much work survived Neal's slices and dices before they recorded the final album, but Mike definitely keeps track of arranging demos and jams, which has always been a strength of his in many of his bands. He has a very "big picture" mentality that helps see an album come together, where as Neal is very song oriented and has strong melodic senses that really propel the individual songs to catchy heights. I haven't spun TGA in awhile, but I remember enjoying a LOT of the individual songs and choruses, Neal is very good at that. With d/t, I've been having a harder time latching on to vocal melodies, but they are slowly settling in as I listen to the album more and more. It's definitely a slow-burn kind of album for me.
-Marc.
Topic: Official Distance Over Time discussion thread (Read 189073 times)
