same old shit

dream theater more like beam geopshere

^Not really surprising considering the fan reaction when they did something different...

It's not blowing me away, but the intro and outro are sick and the instrumental section/solo is great. It's also got the riffs the astonishing was missing.
I hope for less muddy production on the album, though, and this is just the usual Youtube compression.

these guys piss me off so much now for some reason

This is fine, a step up I guess, just wish they’d make longer songs. Nothing INCREDIBLY special about this

Okay, I kind of dig this. Better than most of the stuff they've done recently. The only thing I don't like is all the obvious tinkering around LaBrie's vocals. Yes, he's only getting older and his voice will continue to suffer, but this is needlessly distracting. Otherwise I think it's solid; great guitar work as always, didn't mind Rudess as much as I feared, drums were serviceable if a bit bland.

band will forever suck

song is a lot better if you don't watch the video. singer looks like he's taking a shit at best, not recording vocals and the best parts of his performance he looks bored as fuck. I don't want to hear a Dream Theater instrumental and watch them in the studio. this shit visually is supposed to be more theatrical and dream-like. God damnit Dream Theater. Wish they would do something as cool as their Live In Budokan show.

^Yeah, I don't like watching music videos or those "making of" videos they do for songs, so I just listened to it with the single's cover art.

LaBrie aside, this is pretty damn good.

I thought this was totally 100% fine

I'm kinda glad they're going for a much short album this time around, hopefully they'll be much more focused

Barren song but knowing me I'll prob check the album.

Boring.

Surprised how fun that was.

Not that bad, but really pales in comparison to this year's releases.

It's a Dream Theater song. I wish they'd try to change it up a lot, but I like the typical Dream Theater sound enough to enjoy more of the same (as long as the songs themselves aren't awful, like half of Astonishing)

Side note, I wish they'd write more songs where James could sing the way he does on his solo albums. He sounds great there.

Music is fine, but the production around the vocals is a bit annoying

The production around the vocals makes them inoffensive. That's the least we can ask for

the astonishingly bland

This was good. It seems weird that people expect Dream Theater to have changed after all these years. Just like anyone whose been doing this for a while, their core sound isn't going to be different, but there's just going to be varying degrees of success. Iron Maiden, Meshuggah, Judas Priest are arguably just releasing the "same" album at this point, so really the focus on it is does it still grip the listener.

m e n

eh, mediocre track but obviously much better than another Astonishingly dull ballad.

can't stand mangini. he's so boring

The part around the 2 to 3-minute mark was pretty cool. Rest is not terribly memorable.

I'm glad they had a great barbecue though.

Song is inoffensive to the point of boredom. However, 'inoffensive' is all this album has to be though to rise above their last trainwreck

Also somebody please fire DT's album ""artist""; the album cover and single cover are stock photos, and the latter was already used by Twintera almost a decade ago. You'd think DT could do a hell of a lot better considering their 'status'

Average DT, the chorus has some decent parts, but all the parts are standard and boring. Bridge is typical DT wankery

Band blowz. m/ [495969492220596953939]

Better off filling my ears with paint

Not the freshest thing I’ve heard from them but not bad, even tho the production-wise it’s pretty muddy and watered down in some parts, especially around the vocals.

Wonder what they'd sound like now if Portnoy was still in the band.

Dream theater is with limp bizkit the only bands that if they change the singer they would become more popular and acceptable.

I can't imagine James Labrie having sex. Ever. He seems like so corny that he'd only ONLY make ''love'' to his woman. Tenderly. Not a good thing for a guy in a ''rock'' band.

Thank you impoppy. Unfortunately for my fans and admirers, my exit was due to differences of opinion. The guys in the band replaced me with a hack from Boston. Which is deeply insulting to me as I'm from New York (our baseball teams have a big rivalry). Currently you can check out my other bands which are in my opinion better than Dream Theater. If James Labrie or Ruddess want to Collab I would be down. But Petrucci and that little yellow man will end up getting the shit kicked out of them if I ever see them again. They were very unkind to me. The asian, in particular, has a little man syndrome.

Interesting take, Eons

this band has never been good

song sucks

Someone get JP to stop producing and writing, he's such a Dad Prog boi

Mangini is also only using like 10% of his actual abillity here. What a waste of a very skilled drummer.

why the fuck does the drummer have his cymbals set so high?

lmao Mikeporntoy.

Incredibly stale.

"why the fuck does the drummer have his cymbals set so high? "

Mangini always finds a new way to fucking piss me off lol.

Yeah, I don't get why even the most basic crash needs so much effort to reach up and hit, seems kinda more effort than needed

I personally enjoy videos like this. Haven't heard much by Dream Theater, but this was pretty good. The part from 3:30-4:45 was fun, but it kinda just sounds like all modern prog metal, which isn't a BAD thing, but it definitely hinders me from wanting to invest time or money in this album. I might be a curmudgeon, but it takes some experimentation to make me roll out from under my rock.

lol my good buddy is the vocalist in Labries sons band, hes such a chill, nice, funny dude apparently. sucks he gets all the hate

He looks like a great dude, that's not up for debate.

nothing amazing or new, but I think this is their most solid single with Mangini so far

For what DT is nowadays, song is actually decent, but long ago have these guys lost all incentive to play out of their/the genre's comfort zone.

I enjoy this more and more. Pretty solid, I just wish there were more memorable melodies

Comfort zone DT sound, alright song.

Labrie is their Lars Ulrich no doubt

Idk...it went in one ear and the other.

Nothing really too memorable here but the musicianship is still pristine

For those who say DT don't play out of their comfort zone...
You may not like the album, but that's exactly what Astonishing was. I can't think of any similar albums in metal, especially not in DTs catalogue...

That's true, TA WAS outside of their comfort zone and that's why it has some good songs. 2 hours was just too much though

Great song, classic Dream Theater

sounds like systematic chaos era material which isn't necessarily a bad thing imo

TA was waaaaay too cheesy.
This is a little too Dad Prog

I actually dug the song, it had some great riffs in it. Drum kit looks hilarious though.

Business as usual, but the song isn’t bad

"why the fuck does the drummer have his cymbals set so high?"

Come on guys I think we're reaching for stuff to ha-OKAY WTF LMAOOO

If Magini can do his work that way it should be okay tbh.

Technical mastery squandered on imagination the size of a peanut. God I hate DT for being such a waste of potential.

can somebody explain to me why i get this feeling that i know how the song will unfold from the first second ?

i hate it when music becomes so predictable

''Technical mastery squandered on imagination the size of a peanut. God I hate DT for being such a waste of potential.''

x1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

3:35 to 4:45 is pretty nice but the actual riffs are Train of Thought-levels of blandness.

"Technical mastery squandered on imagination the size of a peanut. God I hate DT for being such a waste of potential"

You should have known that being proficient over a musical instrument doesn't make you a good songwriter. So it's not really a waste of potential since there's no potential capability in the first place. This is obviously the best they can do in these days.

It’s a good song, but nothing mind blowing. I generally enjoy Dream Theater when Petrucci and Rudess can go back and forth, their solos are always good.

Someone on here wrote a review for an album or two back that described Dream Theater as that football player in his late 30’s - a former all-star who’s way past his prime and crowded out of the headlines by the younger, more exciting talent - but can still make a game winning play here and there, despite being at the tail end of their career. I think it’s a pretty apt comparison.

filmed live from dad's man cave

Will Mangini ever not be bland?

"can somebody explain to me why i get this feeling that i know how the song will unfold from the first second ?"

Because Dream Theater have become formulaic.

Their idea of prog has always been a random streak of show-off sections except rare occasions

Mike Blandgini

Marco Minneman would have been such a better drummer for DT. That dude is clever and creative as it gets.

fuck these guys for sacking Mike Portnoy, for the crime of helping out a band who had just lost one of their best friends.

Portnoy left, they didn't sack him...

i think he tried to join a7x while touring with them, but by the time it all played out both bands refused him back.
i was hoping DT would take in aquilles preister, he wrote some god-tier progressive shiz with angra.

Portnoy wanted to stay with DT, but because they were committed to their endless churn of write-record-tour-repeat (and he wanted to take a break) they moved on without him; and then A7X thanked him for stepping in after the Rev's death by refusing to take him on as their full-time drummer.

In all fairness, Brooks Wackerman is probably the best thing about A7X now - but who the fuck would have Mike Magini over Portnoy?

http://loudwire.com/zacky-vengeance-avenged-sevenfold-speaks-mike-portnoy-dream-theater-drama/

"Zacky goes on to say “He told us, 'Hey, I've got good news and bad news. I quit Dream Theater.' We were like, 'Oh, no. Well, if you're happy, then that's good.' [And he was like], 'Now I can be with you guys.' And we were like, 'That's not necessarily what we decided upon. And you should take your time and reconsider.' And he was like, 'Well, I put out my press release.' We were like, 'Dude, that's not how we do business. You should have talked to us before.'"

Shit man, that was a stupid move mike, haha

"I quit DT"
"oh no"

is gold

they're really making a run these days for #1 most overrated band

Petrucci has to be stopped ASAP.