Dream Theater – The Astonishing

For as much as everyone hated this album nobody seems to be getting rid of their vinyl copies LOL!!

to a point i have to agree with mrdream , for me the snare drum sound is pretty horrible to my ears but that's nothing new as it sounds a little similar at times to that snare sound on the images and words album it's that synthetic sounding snare that stops me from being able to fully enjoy these albums.
when the snare is being played quitely with double stroke rolls it sounds fine.
also , i have to agree about the bass being totally buried in the mix to the point where i don't notice myungs playing at all.
all of that aside , even if you can overlook that terrible snare don't expect to fall in love with this album on the first listen: i almost nodded off during the first c.d finding nothing too captivating to be found but halfway through the second c'd i found more things to like as in more attention grabbing riffs and some relatively simple drumming {for dream theater standards} that really works.
i'm not slagging this album at all as i'm sure i will like it more after a few more spins , it just seems like too much of an investment to read all of the lyrics and understand the story of this concept album for the moment.

This album, in my opinion, represents the ignominious death of Dream Theater. Had it been condensed down to a single disc consisting of the best tracks, such as The Gift Of Music, A Better Life, Lord Nafaryus, Three Days, A Life Left Behind, Moment Of Betrayal, and Our New World, it would have been acceptable, if a bit limp. But stretched out over two discs full of unmemorable filler tracks, The Astonishing becomes self-indulgent, repetitive, and just plain boring. I'd especially like to hear an explanation of why we needed three different NOMAC interludes, as opposed to just the first one to give us a taste of what they sound like. The real reason, of course, is that Jordan Rudess wanted to experiment with Heavyocity Gravity, but that doesn't mean the tracks are listenable or add anything to the album.

One customary defense I've heard of this album is that the detractors are just close-minded metalheads who hate it because it's "less metal" than we're used to hearing. In my case, it's a bit complicated. Most of the music I listen to nowadays is actually not metal, but I feel like if Dream Theater wanted to do an album about a technological dystopia, now would have been a better time than ever to unleash a bunch of dark, twisted, metal riffs, and they instead mostly chose to present a bunch of cheesy pseudo-folk and pop ballads. The album is supposed to be "far in the distant future," and yet it feels "far in the distance past" with Medieval elements such as princes and princesses, violins, and even a sword fight on one track. If Petrucci wanted to create an album of Medieval music, that's what he should have gone for, rather than trying to reconcile it with a concept that it can't be reconciled with (a concept lifted whole cloth from 2112, I might add).

LaBrie's performance on this album is ambitious, but overhyped. His "voices" sound pretty similar, and I'm particularly bothered by the "people just don't have the tiiiime" auto-tune fail on Gift Of Music, as well as "of a man who has been glorified" on Lord Nafaryus. The "fied" part is way too far behind the beat, and LaBrie uses the muddy, unrefined vibrato which is one factor (albeit not the only one) bogging down his recent live performances. Anyone who claims this is the best performance of his career urgently needs to revisit an album called Awake. Mangini's drum sound on this album is also not good - synthetic and fake sounding, just like the last album. Even David Prater's infamous triggers on Images and Words sounded better.

I sensed something was horribly wrong with this album the moment I learned it was composed exclusively by Petrucci and Rudess with no songwriting credits given to Myung, LaBrie, or Mangini. Mangini is still "the new guy," and LaBrie has never contributed much to the band beyond the occasional lyric, but the lack of input from Myung is egregious considering he's Petrucci's lifelong friend, and a founding member of Dream Theater. His basslines DEFINED songs like Ytse Jam, Metropolis, Lifting Shadows Off A Dream, and Scarred - more recently, Panic Attack and A Rite Of age - but there's nary any memorable playing from him on The Astonishing. I don't want to hear about the incredibly milquetoast pentatonic riff going into the solo section on A New Beginning (which also has incredibly milquetoast drumming, far below what Mangini, a master of polyrhyhtms and syncopations, could have laid down).

I believe John Petrucci has gotten a case of George Lucas Syndrome, which is to say that without Mike Portnoy around to act as a creative foil, he's surrounded himself with yes-men to the point where he's completely lost touch with reality. People are probably too intimidated by his big muscles and beard to say anything critical. His decision to create a novelization and video game for this album is just weird, as if he's trying to compensate for what he knows to be the underlying failure and mediocrity of the album. If Petrucci is going to stubbornly hang onto LaBrie and Mangini, he is going to have to dump Rich Chycki, and get a more competent producer. Chycki is simply not delivering in of the drum sounds and DYNAMICS of the production - everything is super compressed. There are plenty of fish in the sea: Jens Bogren, Andy Sneap, Steven Wilson, Devin Townsend, Kevin Shirley, Roy Z, Zeuss. Even bringing back Paul Northfield would probably yield an improvement.