I plan on tossing an extensive personal review of my own after a handful more of playthroughs, but here's a few thoughts:
- Sleeping Giant is effervescent. There is so much life, and momentum, pulsing through this track. It's ambitious, wildly bi-polar, with an unpredictable landscape of twists and turns - a specific example of this is the dramatic changes between the first and second runs of the chorus. For me, this is the strongest lyrical and progressive presentation on the album. There's something overwhelming about it, but it's that kind of beautiful chaos that makes me come back. I want to be overwhelmed, and the boys succeeded here.
- It took two play-throughs of Transcending Time for me to really appreciate what was going on here. Someone else mentioned this, but it does feel like a song that you could connect "The Looking Glass" with - even as part of set-list. They aren't carbon copies of each other by any means, but they accompany one another very well. Jordan's playing on this track is fantastic.
- Every band has trademarks. Having been a fan of Dream Theater since Awake, trade-offs are just part of Dream Theater's machine. To expect that we aren't going to hear Ruddess/Petrucci guitar/key trade-offs is arguably insane - that being said, I think it happens a little bit too often on this record. Now, that's not to say that they aren't magnificent, because they are. As a general listener, I would just rather them be spaced out a bit more, is all.
- Awaken the Master is my second favorite track, so far, on the album. I need to dig into a bit more, but there are some great organ moments on here by Ruddess. I love the "Spinning through life...." part of this track.
- Overall, so far, the title track is excellent as I expected an epic from Dream Theater to be. Is it their best? No, probably not. I'm not blown out of the water by it, at least not yet. That being said, any twenty minute song deserves many, many, many play-throughs in order to fully digest it.
- Labrie sounds good. I have no complaints at all, really. I see comments of him playing it "safe" and I find myself questioning what that even means. Is it because of where he remains within his registry? What are we looking for here? "Queen of the Damned" Tate stuff? He remains where he is because it fits the song 95% of the time, to my ears. I'm quite impressed to what Labrie is still capable off, after thirty-plus years of doing this.
- So far, this absolutely beats out "Distance Over Time" and "Astonishing" in terms of quality. Whether it exceeds the s/t or A Dramatic Turn of Events remains to be seen. Many more listens to go from here.
I will say that this album is a very positive light directed towards a very dark time in the world. Regardless of where you're at in your own life, I think it's acceptable to say that we all needed this.
Topic: *Official* A View from the Top of the World discussion thread (Read 145244 times)