Overall, very solid album all the way through. It doesn't quite reach the heights of SFAM, Six Degrees, ADTOE, or DT12. But I would definitely put it in that next tier down with Images and Awake. Really good work from the band with some songs I will no doubt listen to for a long, long time.
I wonder, if you've been a Dream Theater fan for so long, then a man's life evolves and no new album can ever replace the time and events you went through back then. I think if I was a fan since the first albums, not one new album could come close. I still remember buying one of my first cd's as a child, Ride the Lighting from Metallica. I thought it was the best in the world. But also in a timeframe and space when there wasn't that much around it either. Now, being a grown up-dude and my wife gave birth to my fourth' child last month, music 's got a different way of 'landing'. Maybe there is more, but still Dream Theater seems to land spot-on, on my heart. Next to Transatlantic, Dream Theater really is the only band I'll listen to and got all vinyl from.
Of course, a couple of Pink Floyd's are here with me too...
I became a Dream Theaterfan about five years ago. So I had to digest al those studioalbums in a couple of years. Man... I wish I found out 'bout them when I was a kid.
Yeah, I think that is totally a factor, and I
try to be honest and aware of that. It can be hard to overcome that. But I know for me that I think ADTOE and DT12 ranking as my #3 and #4 of all time is a testament both to how good those later albums are AND to the fact that I can look past holding something sacred just because of its "classic" status. As highly as I regard Awake and Images, and as much as they meant to me early on in my DT journey, for example, I have little problem acknowledging that there are things about those albums that I can point to and say that I feel holds them back from being ahead of other albums.
But on the flipside, I think the opposite can be a factor as well, where we've lived with a song or album for so long that we can become kind of numb to how truly good it is, and we can forget how much it kind of "deserves" to be revered. I find myself doing that all the time, and then I go back and listen to something and go, "Oh yeah, this is really fantastic, and I forgot how good it truly is because I haven't actively listened to it in so long."