Dream Theater - Midnight Messiah. Thoughts?

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Topic: Dream Theater - Midnight Messiah. Thoughts?
Posted: January 30 2025 at 05:56

MikeEnRegalia wrote:

^ That's a comfortable hill to die on Cool

Cheers!

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Posted: January 30 2025 at 00:17

^ That's a comfortable hill to die on Cool

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Posted: January 29 2025 at 20:49

I'll die on the hill of "A Change Of Seasons" being the single greatest song they ever wrote.

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Posted: January 29 2025 at 18:40

KorgC3 wrote:

I don't think that I've enjoyed a DT album since Octavarium from 2005, which was probably the last year of LaBrie still occasionally pulling a decent live. Octavarium was also the last album where voice effects sounded like a creative decision rather than a compromise for LaBrie declining vocal ability.
But the LaBrie bashing is something that's been done to death, my real issue with modern DT, is that they're trying to sound too much like themselves.
It's one thing to have individuality in style, which granted all of the band members have. When you hear a modern DT song you instantly recognize it for being a DT song, and that's my problem.
DT for half of their career, was a fairly experimental without a single cohesive and consistent style.
They branched into many styles, from Jazz to Jack-Swing, Pop, Symphonic and etc, and after Octavarium their style became the encapsulation of all the stereotypes people had about their music.
The only exception to this was the Astonishing, which, I didn't like all that much.
I remember that bands like Dragonforce were bashed for their early albums being way too formulaic, and especially for the incompetence of their lead singer at the time. Due to their past influence DT has achieved an untouchability status, that I don't think they deserve at this point. Again, not that their new stuff is terrifically bad or anything. It just not for me.

This seems about on the nose. I regularly go back to Octavarium, and with that, Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence and A Change Of Seasons all getting a fair amount of play. Couldn't get my head round Systematic Chaos or Train Of Thought though and haven't listened to them in an age. I actually quite like The Astonishing, it was kind of their Quadrophenia and was maybe intended as a stage thing. Saw them play live on the Scenes From a Memory tour, wasn't anything memorable to me other than Portnoy's mannerism's which can be quite distracting!

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Posted: January 29 2025 at 07:14

MikeEnRegalia wrote:

but it's also unfortunate that they did not take this opportunity to try a little harder to innovate - instead they churned out literally a bad dream version of themselves.

They had to hurry and get the MIKE IS BACK album out...we'll see what else they do going forward, but I doubt it'll be much.

They've settled into being "Dream Theater Product" and will continue to feed the business model.

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Posted: January 29 2025 at 01:06

I really like them, and I've preliminarily rated the new release as 7.5/10 based on the tracks so far. The problem is that this is "bad" by DT standards, given their stellar releases more than 20 years ago. It's still a nice achievement, but it's also unfortunate that they did not take this opportunity to try a little harder to innovate - instead they churned out literally a bad dream version of themselves.

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Posted: January 28 2025 at 23:22

I don't think that I've enjoyed a DT album since Octavarium from 2005, which was probably the last year of LaBrie still occasionally pulling a decent live. Octavarium was also the last album where voice effects sounded like a creative decision rather than a compromise for LaBrie declining vocal ability.
But the LaBrie bashing is something that's been done to death, my real issue with modern DT, is that they're trying to sound too much like themselves.
It's one thing to have individuality in style, which granted all of the band members have. When you hear a modern DT song you instantly recognize it for being a DT song, and that's my problem.
DT for half of their career, was a fairly experimental without a single cohesive and consistent style.
They branched into many styles, from Jazz to Jack-Swing, Pop, Symphonic and etc, and after Octavarium their style became the encapsulation of all the stereotypes people had about their music.
The only exception to this was the Astonishing, which, I didn't like all that much.
I remember that bands like Dragonforce were bashed for their early albums being way too formulaic, and especially for the incompetence of their lead singer at the time. Due to their past influence DT has achieved an untouchability status, that I don't think they deserve at this point. Again, not that their new stuff is terrifically bad or anything. It just not for me.

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 23:03

Well there is something to be said for a band that can actually go on stage and play the stuff. AI and software/ drum programming is become all the more obvious in prog metal with 'drummers' being able to play death defying and impossible fills and grooves like it's easy peasy. DT are mainly a technical metal band but they can play 'prog' as well and for the most part have quite a varied catalogue to call on. There were never going out on a limb with this. They are not alienating their core fan base which is mostly (from a distance) more a 'metal' crowd than a 'prog' crowd it would seem to me and the fact they make money is not really an issue as they are only one of a handful of prog(ish) bands that manage to do that. Anyway I liked A Broken Man less so Night Terror but will give this a listen today.

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 15:19

^ I just think it's a boring song, and I can sense no excitement or passion in them playing it.

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 13:59

Huh. Just like with Night Terrors, the song wasn't super exciting to me... until the keyboard driven breakdown section kicked in (around 4:40 timestamp). Those breakdowns are such gold nuggets.

Edited by Hrychu - January 23 2025 at 14:00

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 13:52

IncogNeato wrote:

Catcher10 wrote:

I can listen to Awake, Falling/Infinity and I&W all day long still and fully enjoying Kevin Moore and Derek's playing.

100% - They both had personality and mood creation. Jordan is supremely skilled but to my ears has no personality. It's like he programmed an app to play the parts for him.

'Awake' IMO is their pinnacle.

Just due to A Mind Beside Itself , makes me agree with you. Throw in Scarred and Space Dye Vest and that seals the deal for me...

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 11:57

Catcher10 wrote:

I can listen to Awake, Falling/Infinity and I&W all day long still and fully enjoying Kevin Moore and Derek's playing.

100% - They both had personality and mood creation. Jordan is supremely skilled but to my ears has no personality. It's like he programmed an app to play the parts for him.

'Awake' IMO is their pinnacle.

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 11:28

Portnoy left due to as mentioned, he thought they needed a break to recharge the DT batteries. Unfortunately (or not) he was 100% right. What he did was extremely creative and engaging with Neal Morse, Transatlantic and Flying Colors and then the hard rock metal stuff with Winery Dogs and Metal Allegiance.

When he left that left Petrucci to basically produce and manage the band on his own, with even more involvement from Rudess, hence the major disconnect with me and DT. I'm so done listening to Rudess's playing, very talented but that sound of his and the keyboard/synth w**king has grown long in the tooth. I can listen to Awake, Falling/Infinity and I&W all day long still and fully enjoying Kevin Moore and Derek's playing.

That being all said, the new song is fine....Its becoming standard DT music now, a band that wants to sound like DT used to sound. It's too bad in that as they get into the final stage of this bands career, I am not too excited that we will hear anything amazing full of creativity as a final album.

I already have this album on preorder and tixs to the Seattle show next month. For me they have dropped many levels from where I used to view them back 20 years ago.

It's too bad......

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 10:07

moshkito wrote:

Hi,

... a band that supposedly has great musicians, and their talents are not used ... I'm not sure that makes it a great band, or maybe, this is just pedestrian music ... commercially viable so they can sell enough to keep themselves rich and in good standing above many others ...

What else is new?

Dream Theater has become a product showcase of skill. They can "shred" and are all highly skilled musicians. They're probably capable of something way more creative, but in the corporation of Dream Theater, skills on display pays the bills.

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 09:06

Hi,

Not sure what we were expecting from this band ... a good band, a nice band ... but I don't know that I would consider them a great band ... some nice stuff and music, but now, 20+ years later, it feels like a repeat and Mike's return to the banging on the drums, did not make it any better ... and at this point, after 2 songs, I will continue to think that ... nothing special here ... just nice stuff, and nothing new.

Someone mentioned Jordan above ... and in this one piece, he is non-existant at all ... a band that supposedly has great musicians, and their talents are not used ... I'm not sure that makes it a great band, or maybe, this is just pedestrian music ... commercially viable so they can sell enough to keep themselves rich and in good standing above many others ...

What else is new?

Edited by moshkito - January 23 2025 at 09:06

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 06:53

I was a monster DT fan and had bought everything up through BCaSL...but even then, I thought that album was boring. Then it started to sink in to me that largely everything in the Rudess era, save maybe SFAM, did not connect with me at all. It all came across like "by the numbers" and samey.

I barely heard anything w/ Mangini and what I heard did nothing for me.

This does nothing for me. Sounds like a band playing what they think DT sounds like.

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 06:43

^^ no, I do seem to remember they were neither your nor Jody's bag! LOL

Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 06:36

^ Gothic Kabbalah is still the only awesome Therion release IMHO Smile

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Posted: January 23 2025 at 06:12

Cristi wrote:

Last time i was excited for real with a new DT album was Octavarium. Smile

I think you and I have agreed on this before. Back in the day, I was also really into Therion; thought they were so original, both musically and visually. I saw their 'Celebrators Of Becoming' set in 2006 which was phenomenal, but they also haven't done anything of note for me since Gothic Kabbalah in 2007. I'm eternally grateful to both bands for the joy they gave me through my thirties, but either they are treading water, I've lost the excitement of it all now... a bit of both, I suspect.

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