To be fair, business and density I'd say are probably defining characteristics of this album and if one didn't really appreciate that side of the band, I'd understand how this album would be a turn-off. For me, this is basically the ideal balance between that and a focus on accessible, melodic content which, while it isn't all necessarily ultra catchy so far, feels incredibly purposeful and it all complements the whole so well.
Also... maybe it's just me, but stuff like:
And as a band I’ve said it before but Dream Theater honestly doesn’t deserve to even be called progressive anymore. They are a parody of themselves and are formulaic in every sense of the word. Nothing about them pushes the envelope, nothing about them tries to progress. They are stuck in a comfort zone and at this point they’ve paid the mortgage on it and they’re not going anywhere.
Just kind of reeks of frustrated burnout to me, in addition to "Recycle Theater" kind of just being a bit of a cheap shot. I also think some of the criticisms are pretty heavily flawed, like the whole song structure thing. Like... go and look at Images and Words, Awake, Scenes from a Memory or Six Degrees. With the relatively rare exception, most of those songs follow a (often expanded) form of the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus etc. structure. I never got the idea that somehow this is a mark against them now when it wasn't back in the day. Stuff like "Looking Glass Lite" and 4 verses being interchangable are just things that are imo disproven with even a moderate degree of engagement, though I guess it's hyperbole.
I don't have a problem with criticism and, in spite of my disagreements as to broader opinions, can understand the occassional complaint here and there. A string of affirmatively negative statements (as well as judgements on the band's character) is a different thing entirely in my view. I honestly kind of get where it comes from because I used to do this occassionally when I did reviewing as a hobby, where I'd verbally slaughter an album and sneak in some pretty snarky comments to drive home the point if it didn't meet my expectations, actual substantive critique be damned. I've since come to realise that it's kind of a waste of my energy, given how subjective the medium is in the first place. I'll still be critical, but I prefer to (even if I'm not always successful at it) do it in a more dispassionate way that still accomodates someone else saying "but I like it like that", given that I try not to use terms like bland or uninspired.
It's interesting because since I changed my mindset on that, I find myself less affected by disappointment when it comes to new releases. It's not like the disappointing albums stopped coming out, or that they stopped coming out by bands I highly admired either. It's just that I don't really spend energy on that negativity these days. As a bit of a tangent, this is why I don't get why someone would put out negative (as in, viriolic) reviews, because surely if you hated an album, you'd want it to get less attention, rather than attract people who are morbidly curious (or on the flipside, intentionally or unintentionally bait people into defending it)? Even if one was highly emotionally invested in it, I just don't personally think it's healthy to dwell on it to that degree, as well as courting confrontation with highly emotionally loaded contrarian statements.
Topic: *Official* A View from the Top of the World discussion thread (Read 149293 times)