AWAKE

This album is really stale, dry, and mostly, boring to my ears. I don't sense any artistic touch, nor do I experience any atmospheric sensations. Erotomania has a great keyboard line, and the Silent Man is decent, but the rest of this album revolves purely around techinical skill and lacks any feel (that, undefinable, invisible thing), musical or lyrical poetry, or anything really fresh. I'm not a fan of the tones and sounds of the instruments here (drums and guitar particularily) and LaBrie's vocals are at their most annoying. Songs like "The Mirror" are very aggressive, simple metal songs with interesting, amusing, but ultimately dull rhythmic guff. Space Dye Vest's piano intro does nothing for me; I feel no emotional response to it. And Scarred seems to be 11 minutes without substance.

This is my personal opinion on the piece, and if you disagree (I know many of you do) please do not be offended.