[QUOTE=The JoZ]Justified? Perhaps, but I don't think this is the Dream Theater's Saint Anger. I'm not sure this will ever be "Classic Heavy Metal" but it is heavy, and it is metal, and it does a good job of being that. If, however, they bring this same attitude toward their next album, then I think I would totally agree with you about their stance. If they think they have to write heavy songs to not be wimpy, they are mistaken...however, I personally would rather see another Train of Thought than Images and Words, personally.

I don't think This Dying Soul shows they are running out of ideas. The songs are all about the same thing, so for them to reuse a few riffs is not a bad thing. Honestly, the only riff I've heard them reuse is the breakdown riff; 1-0-0-0. And I like that riff alot, in spite of how simple it is.

Portnoy needs to go to a Danny Carey drum clinic as far as I am concerned. :p[/QUOTE]

Yeah, okay. This was totally a good debate, and I greatly appreciate your listening and helping me to work this out. I guess you're right: we'll wait 'till the next album to pass judgement on this particular DT direction. You gave me a nice welcome to musicianforums.com over at the Alter Bridge review thread, and I appreciate your patience and, most of all, your politeness in dealing with such an unneccesarily fire-spitting review as my first post. I appreciate it. Thanks!
:thumb:

[QUOTE=Iai]Ripper22 - I agree with the vast majority of what you are saying. What I feel with this album is that, it gets better the less you think about it. Whereas with previous Dream Theater albums, the brain needs to be engaged for the listener to enjoy it to it's full potential. This one, when you start thinking about it, you start realising all these things that are wrong with it; things you don't realise when you're just casually listening to it.

That's my take on it anyway.[/QUOTE]
Sorry I haven't replied to you yet. I think you may be right. This discussion prompted me to listen to the album in its entirety today to try and see if I was missing something crucial, and I think that once my brain was disengaged slightly, I could enjoy it more. However, I'm one of those people that when I listen to anything, my brain is analysing all different points in the mix, listening for sophistication. That's the high that I get out of music, is understanding all the different pieces and how they make the whole what it is. I guess you wouldn't call that casual :lol: and I guess it means my enjoyment of ToT will always have a monthly quota! Oh well. :rolleyes:

Oh, yeah, the Joz, and mad props to Danny Carey.
"Danny Carey vs. Mike Portnoy."
MIKE: Look at what I can do!
Plays massively fast, massively standard heavy prog pattern.
AUDIENCE: That's great Mike, way to go, woo hoo, win those polls.
DANNY: Can you tell what I'm doing?
Plays severely mysterious clouds of drums and cymbals that intertwine in an impossible web of percussion perfection that sound just like those hexagrams on the front of his bass drums.
AUDIENCE: (Crickets chirping)
AUDIENCE MEMBER IN BACK ROW: mike portnoy sucks my drumstick, man!
:p
MIKE: :upset:

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

All Danny has to do is play the Grudge outro solo, extended of course, and he beats everything Portnoy has ever done. Period :thumb:



Hit me up on a messanger if you ever want to discuss further metal :thumb:

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Actually, I've seen FII reviewed by AllMusic as their worst...hence the reason I want to see Kaden review it.

I think this is a strong album for DT, only thing that I don't like is probably the rapping, the riff fron In the Name of God is one of my faves of all time, thanks DT.

4.5/5

i just bought train of thought and wow is all i can say. guys check this out it is great copy and paste this in your browser metalisgood.proboards28.com

can we stop the Danny Carey vs Mike Portnoy thing? They play in 2 very different bands. Can't we just enjoy both of them?

I changed my rating to a 4 rather than a five. The re-emergence of this thread made me look over it and it's obvious I was in a state of quite severe fanboy-ism at the release of the CD. Over time I've come to see more of the faults and it's definitely not what I would now consider a 5-star album, but it's still enjoyable from time to time and I think 4 is fair.

Nevertheless, I'm going to leave my review as it is, even though I don't necessarily agree with all I said when it was written. This was when I had a little too much 'Blind Faith', so to speak, in Dream Theater. I've grown out of that, so it's not the same viewpoint I hold now, but I'm quite proud of it as my first review.

[QUOTE=Distorted Vision]I changed my rating to a 4 rather than a five. The re-emergence of this thread made me look over it and it's obvious I was in a state of quite severe fanboy-ism at the release of the CD. Over time I've come to see more of the faults and it's definitely not what I would now consider a 5-star album, but it's still enjoyable from time to time and I think 4 is fair.

Nevertheless, I'm going to leave my review as it is, even though I don't necessarily agree with all I said when it was written. This was when I had a little too much 'Blind Faith', so to speak, in Dream Theater. I've grown out of that, so it's not the same viewpoint I hold now, but I'm quite proud of it as my first review.[/QUOTE]

Nobly said. :thumb:

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Personally I think it deserves a 4.5 rather than a 4...it's still a great album, even if you think you did it with a touch of fanboyism.



May not be a classic album, but one of the best I currently own :thumb:

[QUOTE=Distorted Vision]I changed my rating to a 4 rather than a five. The re-emergence of this thread made me look over it and it's obvious I was in a state of quite severe fanboy-ism at the release of the CD. Over time I've come to see more of the faults and it's definitely not what I would now consider a 5-star album, but it's still enjoyable from time to time and I think 4 is fair.[/QUOTE]
Over time, as I've come to see more of the faults, I've also noticed more points of excellency. I think a 5/5 was a bit generous to begin with though.

This album is definetly torwards the top on my list. It was definetly better than Falling Into Infinity which was crap for Dream Theater.

I love Stream of Consciousness and In the Name of God. I plan on picking up this album sometime.This Message Edited On 12.04.05

[QUOTE=Distorted Vision]I changed my rating to a 4 rather than a five. The re-emergence of this thread made me look over it and it's obvious I was in a state of quite severe fanboy-ism at the release of the CD. Over time I've come to see more of the faults and it's definitely not what I would now consider a 5-star album, but it's still enjoyable from time to time and I think 4 is fair.

Nevertheless, I'm going to leave my review as it is, even though I don't necessarily agree with all I said when it was written. This was when I had a little too much 'Blind Faith', so to speak, in Dream Theater. I've grown out of that, so it's not the same viewpoint I hold now, but I'm quite proud of it as my first review.[/QUOTE]

4/5 is perfect. Dream Theater, with the sole exception of Falling into Infinity, does not know how to make a bad album.

This one is different, and lesser to their bests, but still quite good. The first 6 minutes of This Dying Soul is my favorite spot of the album. If they cut it to six or seven minutes it would be the best track on the album.

Overall, every track is good or great, and i can listen to them all again and again.

Album Rating: 2.5

[QUOTE=Kaden]Falling into Infinity gets a 0/5 from me. That album is the sucks.[/QUOTE]

falling into infinity isn't too bad, i in fact like it. just let me breathe, take away my pain, and you not me kill it kinda, but i'd give falling into infinity 3.75/5. trial of tears is orgasmic, and is in my favorite song. train of though isn't as bad as i thought it would be since most of my friends are fans of old dream theater and said train of though sucks, well, they're wrong. endless sacrifice, in the name of god, stream of consciousness, and vacant are all killer tracks. train of though gets a solid 4/5 from me :thumb: . . .

loved it

I just bought Train of Thought. Its my 3rd DT album (IaW and SFAM being the first two), and I havent had a chance to fully listen to it yet. I guess all I can really say at this point is that its not quite as good as the other two I have, but I do like what I hear so far.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

[QUOTE=juggalotricksta]I just bought Train of Thought. Its my 3rd DT album (IaW and SFAM being the first two), and I havent had a chance to fully listen to it yet. I guess all I can really say at this point is that its not quite as good as the other two I have, but I do like what I hear so far.[/QUOTE]



It all depends on what you like.



If you like Dream Theater for their not-quite-as-heavy, epic stuff like is found on I&W and SFAM, then you might not like ToT as much, because ToT is pretty much straightforward progressive metal. It's quite a bit heavier than almost anything they've done, save for a few tracks on Awake and Six Degrees. The rest of their stuff can still be called metal, but ToT is *more* metal than the rest.

I like it because they think about what there writing. that fact that some bands do still care about there music that much is good to know. that's why i'm a tool fan, opeth fan, etc...