Reviews discussion

Peter Gabriel pfffft we have Whistler, Vompatti and Micky. Now that's wit.

Edited by Easy Money - August 16 2009 at 20:53

From the same thread.

OK am I on the right thread here? I'd like to know whre I've been insulting people's reviews. I'm speaking for myself. it used to be fun here writing reviews and bios and reading what others might have to say about bands and albums. I even had an interview lined up ( that I put a bit of work into )  with a rather big name in the spring but I eventually declined to do it because of all the embarrasing nonesense that has been going on not only in the reviews but on the site in general.

Well do you come here to f*** around? I don`t think so. If you don`t then I guess I wasn`t referring to you. So what are you worrying about? I was obviously referring to  these jokers whose assinine reviews show up on the reviews reporting thread. Now that I`m on the correct thread I`ll say this again. I honestly think that the new review standards should be introduced in order to prevent these monkeys, who evidently have no life, from ruining what should be a positive, constructive and even fun thing. You can tell that some guys are not too experienced at this thing but that`s not what I was referring to. I wasn`t too good at it in the beginning and I occasionally even suprise myself. 

Vibrationbaby wrote: Well do you come here to f*** around? I don`t think so. If you don`t then I guess I wasn`t referring to you. So what are you worrying about? I was obviously referring to  these jokers whose assinine reviews show up on the reviews reporting thread. Now that I`m on the correct thread I`ll say this again. I honestly think that the new review standards should be introduced in order to prevent these monkeys, who evidently have no life, from ruining what should be a positive, constructive and even fun thing. You can tell that some guys are not too experienced at this thing but that`s not what I was referring to. I wasn`t too good at it in the beginning and I occasionally even suprise myself.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Agree with everything you said. And yes a great quality review from back in the day where the sun didn't set and rain never fell.

Those were the days, when men were men and camels were Canterbury. ;)

one hump or two?

But, c'est dommage, it was all a Mirage.  With a nod and a wink, the mole exclaimed, the land of grey and pink seems very red today, shall we sing a song to Che?

Ian, your last post was a personal insult so I hid it, stay on topic.

I say we put Bob on the JR team, he really knows his stuff there, plus his obvious appreciation of all things jazz.

Edited by Easy Money - August 18 2009 at 14:50

Some reviews, bashing DT:

dashrendar I guess I am a completionist because I still buy Dream Theater albums even though I saw the beginning of their decline with "Train of Thought". I read people here say this album starts out great and that is what Dream Theater is good about.

This album starts out terribly. Completely robotic, uninspired sounds and noises. There is absolutely no creativity left in those guys. Plain, simple and boring showing off of their technical musicianship--nothing more. It was so bad that midway I switched to "Scenes From A Memory Metropolis Part II". Ahhhh, thank god.

Mike Portnoy needs to calm the f*ck down. This ass still can't do a smooth natural sounding and appealing drum fill. LaBrie should quit singing completely. Petrucci and Rudess should utilize their amazing guitar and keyboard skills, respectively, elsewhere. I mean it tells you something when they do a better job in their side projects than in their main band.

Those guys need to sit down and think instead of pumping out crap.

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JJLehto After the disappointment that was "Systematic Chaos" I had mixed expectations for this latest album. I was hopeful, (more like praying) that this would be a turnaround, but in my brain, and stomach, I was bracing for a let down. Unfortunately, I was right.

Maybe they have just been around too long? The Simpsons have been around 20 years and though they used to be one the greatest TV shows there was....they are not just stale. They have lost it. I fear that is what happened with Dream Theater. They have just burned out/stop trying/out of ideas I do not know, but maybe they should have just hung it up. It is sad when a TV show goes off in its prime, we miss it but enjoy the great re-runs. Dream Theater should have gone the route of Mash and called it quits when they were on top and play what they have already done.

OK, enough depressed ranting and TV references. How would I describe this album? Generic. Stale. Cheesy. Now when it comes to prog metal, (and certain bands in particular) I expect some cheese and really do not have a problem with it. However, this album has enough cheese to make a pizza which is compounded by the fact that not much is new, and what is new sounds generic. This all adds up to one word. Boring.

Now, Mr. LaBrie. He is the butt of many a joke and while he is far from my favorite vocalist, (OK very far) he could be worse. On this album he is. I absolutely can not stand his vocals on this album.

Of course there are a few good parts, I really like some riffs in the first song. However, I can not make it through the whole thing. This is the scenario with all the others. Some parts may be good but when you can not make it through the whole song, you have a problem.

The Shattered Fortress. This song is the perfect example of almost everything I have said. This is finally the completion of Portnoy's journey through the 12 step program. It uses pieces from all the other various songs throughout. Talk about boring! OK, I'm sure they will say as the final piece of journey it encompasses every part of it. Is this true? Is this just a feeble attempt to cover up the fact they had nothing else? Who knows. What I do know is it is boring. The song is just a bunch of other DT songs connected with predictable solo's and they are frankly, even starting to all sound similar. I guess it is a cool idea, but it is just really uncreative. The only neat thing about it is near the end of "The Shattered Fortress" is the opening part to "The Glass Prison". Get it??? It's kind of cool, and if they made a different song but still used that outro it would have been awesome, and not just cheesy and uninspired.

As I said above, there are some cool parts in the songs, but I can not get through a single one. When you are struggling to stay with it, skip to next song, repeat, repeat, until you are at the end of the album, well that is a failure in my opinion. "Systematic Chaos" was the beginning of this and it has continued. I would like to say this is just a streak and not a trend, but I doubt it. Boring, uncreative, and the worst LaBrie vocals yet.

One Star

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MrMan2000 I purchased BC&SL the day it came out, like I have all DT releases since Images & Words. And, like every other release, I give it a few weeks to sink in as I find their music takes a while to digest. Having given it adequate time to ferment my initial impression has been confirmed: this is, without question, the worst Dream Theater release ever.

I'm stunned that so many review are giving this such a high ranking. The simplest measure of my feelings for this disc is that when I'm listening I honestly can't wait for it to be over so I can get on to listening to something better. In my car I still have a 6 CD player and the mood change as it switches from this disc to Symphony X's Paradise Lost is unmistakable. (The fact I can't seem to pull Paradise Lost out of the player should tell you my feelings about that release).

Anyway....the faults with BC&SL are pretty evident and describe

1. Lack of new ideas 2. Poor songwriting further tarnished by abysmal lyrics 3. Musical w**kery leading to needlessly long songs

1. Lack of new ideas: as anyone who's been listening to DT since the early days will readily admit, they've been regurgitating the same ideas for the last 10 years. The last act of originality from this band was Scenes From A Memory. Everything since has been reinventions of works they've done previously. Now this ailment plagues many a band and doesn't mean that their current efforts suck. It does mean they need to bring some other high-quality elements (like song ideas and lyrics, for instance). When I look at SDOITurbulence, ToThought, Octavarium and Systematic Chaos I hear reworked ideas but there's enough quality and variety to keep the listener interested. On BC&SL however, there is not a single song, passage, bridge, intro, outro, solo or transition here that the band hasn't done before, and done better. Literally, not a single song get me going when listening. Again, this lack of new musical ideas would be okay if it weren't for problem number 2....

2. Poor songwriting and abysmal lyrics: the lack of creativity is most evident in the poor craft of songwriting. Admittedly, this has never been a real DT strength (they're not Bono or Bruce Springsteen, after all). But, they've had some damn good ideas in the past, especially with their 90's output. I mean, if you outline the ideas the drove ACOSeasons compared to The Count of Tuscany it doesn't seem possible they came from the same people. One tells the story of life lived, of going through the "Spring" of youth and possibilities to a dark winter when life's realities bring the storyteller down to a rebirth and finally coming full circle when he watches a sunset with his son. A cohesive, compelling, full-circle story. The Count of Tuscany is about accepting a ride from a stranger while in Italy, going to a castle, being scared and finding out you had no need to be scared. Seriously, who would write about such a thing? And if you did write about it, what makes you think it's a solid foundation for a 20-minute "epic"? The quality of ideas found on BC&SL are infinitely inferior to other DT efforts.

The atrocious lyrics used to complete these sub-standard ideas just make it worse. Crap like "Life goes by in the blink of an eye, with so much left to say". "Thank you for the inspiration. Thank you for the smiles. All the unconditional love that carried me for miles". I absolutely cringe throughout this album it is just so, so bad. Again, hard to believe the people who wrote this penned ACOS, Learning to Live, Voice, Scarred, and the many other well-written songs they've done in the past. Which brings us to the final problem....

3. Musical w**kery. The best example here is A Nightmare to Remember. This actually has the makings of a good song. The story of a family enjoying a night of celebration then suddenly having it all taken away in a car accident. The intro, first two verses and chorus and first break all work. Then there is a transition where, even on first listen you can tell the band has abandoned whatever store was being told and shifted instead into "we're gonna jam for a while here and perform outrageous workouts on our instruments, regardless of whether it fits the mood / tone of the story; and we're only gonna stop when we're damn certain we've proved to everyone that we know how to play our instruments really, really, really well". Amazingly, they do this, then bring in an outrageous attempt at death-metal growling from Portnoy, then go into a second needless, extended jam.

Now, this is DT and awesome musical prowess is a key component of the band and always has been. However, where once these musical wanderings were a 1 or 2 time diversion from otherwise standard song structures they are now pursued on virtually every song. It's one dimensional, formulaic, and frankly lazy. A Nightmare to Remember COULD be a good 6-8 minute song but instead is 15 minutes of drudgery. Virtually every song on this disc goes on too long (and about half of all DT songs since SFAMemory are too long).

Bottom line...I don't even want to listen to this thing and probably won't. Those of you claiming this is DT at their best really need to re-visit the first half of their catalog and make a sober comparison. I kinda want to give it two stars but I am a DT completist (own every CD, video and bootleg available through YTSEJAM) and even I don't like this. One star.

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Menswear
Prog Reviewer
Middle age crisis.

Some guys buy a bike, some others date a younger chick, well Dream Theater wears eyeliner and act tough. Everybody has it's thing.

When I played this in the car, 2 minutes of track 4, my wife gave me a 'look'. The look that said: 'Shut it off, now'. She got really annoyed because of the intensity of the songs in general; not really the soothing type holding the steering wheel. Okay honey, that's true, they pushed the throttle too much this time. But hey, there's not much more to this than brutal speed and road-rage music: it's just too loud, too fast, too angry and too repetitive.

Again, DT's gothier than before, with mean attitude. Let's put the word mean between quotes, because the band is as scary as fathers at the mall just out of Buffalo Jeans. When Octavarium got out, I was surprised how this modern-tech-goth edge suited well DT, but this is many steps towards ridicule: Church-Dracula organ, Metallica references by the dozen, pseudo-rapping and yes, the final step...growling.

I mean, if this album is your first ecounter with the band, you'll think you've discovered a gold mine, and true, the album has many qualities( but qualities that made their reputation 20 years ago. How about something refreshing? ). To the fan who followed them since 1993 (me), it seems like a complete lost in translation and I feel I"ve lost my little secret garden.

Where's the band that claimed Rush as their main influence?

In this particular case i don't think the guy even listened to the album. Anyone who did can tell how much Rush there is in The Best of Times and, to some degree, in Count of Tuscany.

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richardh
Prog Reviewer
I don't normally give such low marks to any album but this is the most boring load of tripe I've ever heard.DT were always inferior to Rush and now they have slunk back to their roots in coming out with a basic heavy metal style record.The world has enough of this sort of stuff.I'd rather listen to Iron Maiden who are a lot more fun quite frankly.

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poslednijat_colobar
Prog Reviewer
The album is little bit longer,than it should be! The songs are longer than they should,too! It's full of repetitions. The album is good in terms of technical abilities, but most if the songs are boring and the problem is the lack of melody in there. There are a few instruments and vocals, but I would like to ask where is the melody? That make all of the songs boring and the album boring as whole. Here in Awake we can find one of the best Dream Theater's songs - Erotomania - it's just great and it's one of the most progressive songs I've ever heard.6:00,Caught in a Web and Voices are somewhat good songs,but everything else is boring. The length of the album is negative for its overall quality. Probably the reason for the success of the album is the success of the previous one,which is quite better, but very overrated, too! Decent album with one special hint!


Edited by CCVP - August 18 2009 at 21:58