Dream Theater always came across as a band where their passion for playing was highly correlated with their passion for creating music.
And I agree but I am referring to the stylistic side of the album. Another collection of energetic and heavy songs with a new sound make up is nice but I'd like for once to see the band try to make something special. Again we'll wait and see!
I don't have the link for that particular interview, but it's definitely somewhere here in this thread, but Jordan said a few months ago that, while DT15 isn't a concept album, they did follow a "topic" o "theme" for it. We obviously don't know what that is yet, but we might know in about a month or a bit more from now
Indeed the plan for Six Degrees was not that one from the beginning, they even wanted to do a completely different album - a "world" album, drawing inspiration from various cultures and nations and then use instruments of that nation (or something to that effect). Then they went to see Pantera and they changed their minds, getting inspired for The Glass Prison. Also, either Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, can't remember who, used that "world music" idea for their album at the same time, so they definitively scrapped it.
Ah yes, Steve Vai came up with that idea.
Funny enough, that album, Alive in an Ultra World, has Mike Mangini on drums
I feel Mangini is in a place in the band where he isn't a 100% happy. But that's me and of course that's debatable, but since The Astonishing, he has this way of talking about his position in the band that is very defensive. I felt it really strong in this interview. Like "I do this and that for the band, don't treat me like I do nothing more than that". I feel bad for him! He's just a great guy.
I think it's because they didn't only change drummers when MP left, but they also changed the way their live show works. They want a tight presentation with backing tracks, lights and video perfectly in synch with the band. What I got from the interview is that Mike's job for live shows is to be perfectly on time every time and he's making it clear that it isn't because "he's a robot drummer" but because that's the approach the whole band wants to use. He does sound a lot more excited about writing and recording and collaborating in the studio, as he was for D/T and now DT15, he wants to make his contributions heard.