New Dream Theater photo

 

That image tells me that a girl, presumably 25-30 years old, had just had sex with a poor innocent teddy bear... The music will be electro-pop euro-oriented with flashes of jazzy-delight provided by the shades of blue that we can find in the title of the album, which obviously is a reference to Miles Davis' masterpiece. It probably presents a metaphor about the ocean and also about how she was feeling so sad and "blue" but suddenly found a bear to vent all her frustations on and a few hours later, against a virginal, quite mystically-religious white pure backdrop, she emerges with the corpse of the damned bear who represents mankind, those b*****ds who robbed her virtues in the back of a gray alley many years ago.... Her pants are torn, which is a sign of the struggles she has made in life and the fight she put to keep her honour, something the ^%@% teddy bear had to endure because that b*****d paid for all of our crimes......

 

.... yes my people, I have realized this is a religious album.

 

Well... obviously these guys think that using ties and suits already makes them look highly indie and/or intellectual and it's partially true. Evidently the lack of color in the photograph is a cry against the futile and repugnant use of color like in the DT photograph, but also an aesthetic plea to be treated like some kind of vintage act that obviously will make musical references to the past, while keeping it "current" which can be determined after seeing the atrociously pre-fabricated nerdy/geeky look of all the male characters, who avoid making the smallest gesture of a smile lest they be confused with anything else but true art-rock saviors who can't afford to sell themselves even though they're posing for a photograph just the same as the guys in N'Sync. Look how brillianty every woman is looking ina different direction, a sign of utter originality and chaos, disorder, hence, according to them, rebellion and art. The girls bring the balance, those two in the corner, to the black lack of color of the center of the picture, a sign of the incrediblt artistry that can be found in the music of this group of people, who can't try harder enough to look like they don't belong, even though they just fall in a complete different category, but they're just as mundane as the rest in their group. They adapted to their rules. They don't belong to the "non-indie" group, oh no. They really don't. They're just as vulgar because they look like exactly any kind of group that plays the music they play.

 

If you really don't want to sell your image and prostitute yourself, then stay away from the cover inlet. Otherwise all you're doing is posing and making your little ego be given some of the praise that, originally, the music by itself should be able to get.

 

Albums WITHOUT the pics of the artists.... now that's much better.... but very few manage to do that.... it takes BALLLS.

 

Bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, and Tool managed to do it for years before showing clear images of themselves in any part of the album.

 

Re monks' traditional undergarments: I do believe Benedictine monks (okay I could've got the denomination wrong) used to wear boxers made from some type of hessian. Bit of a sackloth & ashes connection, I guess.

 

I STILL think they look like rejects from Arthur Brown's 1968 Top of the Pops version of Fire. Also think Carl Palmer and Vincent Crane were on that one - all wore hoods so 'tis hard to tell.