A DRAMATIC TURN OF EVENTS

There are alot of great moments on this album and overall there is some great songwriting here, however the lyrics and the needless overindulgence and discontinuity in the instrumental sections bog the album down, keeping it from true greatness.

I feel like another month or so of editing and rewriting certain melodies, lyrics and instrumental breaks would have resulted in an album on par with Octavarium (still wouldn't match Awake, SFAM or IAW in my opinion). But sadly since they didn't self edit and really try to do something fresh and creative here this album is stuck in the same vein as the last few albums, still good, but not terribly inspiring or novel.

In order to put out a really great album I feel that they really do need an outside producer that will push them to break away from their normal mode of writing, the intro, verse, pre chorus, chorus, verse, pre chorus, chorus, instrumental noodling, solo, chorus, outro formula is dreadfully boring and predictable at this point and takes away from otherwise good song writing. Also the post production could make things more interesting like interesting panning or backdroppibg certain guitar parts. All the guitars on this album are very forward and dry in the mix making it somewhat stale in it's delivery ( aside from the solos they sound great as usual).

Track ratings: 1. 4 stars 2. 4.5 3. 3.5 4. 4 5. 3 6. 3.5 7. 2.5 8. 4 9. 3.75

Bottom line, this is a good album with catchy hooks and good melodies, but they seem to be trying too hard in the noodling department and don't serve the song well with much of those extended solo sections. The lyrics are rather cheesy in many parts and not deep and poignant as in past albums like Awake for example, instead they are trying to tell these stories rather matter of factly and not in an artful way. Because of these flaws I give the album a 3.75 star rating.

I am looking forward to the next album when Mangini can actually take part in the writing process and maybe the guys will let loose a bit more and be more experimental...here's hoping.