Only a couple of spins in and I feel that, like in my experience with The Astonishing And Unlike the rest of the Mangini-era albums, I might need to listen to this album more times in order to form an opinion. I loved ADTOE and Distance Over Time right away after my first time hearing them, and while I did like DT12 a bit Less, the opinion I had about it was the same all the times I listened to it.
I don't think I'm gonna like this more than ADTOE or DoT, but there definitely are gems here. The songs are more complex, and not as easy to appreciate in a casual listening (Say, while driving to work) as other DT albums might be.
The Alien to me is probably the weakest song on the album so far. Being the first song that was released I've listened to this song more times than any other song from the album, and I just don't care enough for it. It just doesn't leave any kind of impression to me. This is happening with Sleeping Giant as well, but I need to listen to it more times. So far I've loved Answering the Call and Transcending Time, the latter being my favorite song on the album so far. I like Invisible Monster as well. Awaken the Master is pretty fascinating to me in the sense that I feel that there's a lot to appreciate in this song and I haven't done so for some reason.
The title track... Is nothing like any other DT Epic I've heard before, and I can't say if that's good or bad. I'm digging the instrumental parts of it, but I don't feel like it has either a satisfying ending or a memorable melody/leitmotif like the other DT songs longer than 20 minutes. Illumination Theory, which I had considered my least favorite DT Epic up until this point, at least had that absolutely gorgeous Orchestral Break in the middle of it. This... I can't pinpoint a single part of the title track that made me go "Wow. I'm going to remember this for a long time".
Again, it might be me. Like I've said, I think this album is not the kind of album you like immediately in a casual listen. I might need to play it several more times and really pay attention to it in order to form an opinion.