Epics

Came here looking to make sure Crystallized was mentioned. It's incredible - the shift from the heavy section to the vocal harmonies after the 9 min mark grabs me every time. And the celtic-sounding bit after that? BRB! NEED TO LISTEN NOW!

As for others, I find the criteria of 15 minutes a bit arbitrary (why not 10 or 12 minutes?), and I just realised that 10 years only gives me as far back as 2008 - which feels just like yesterday. But here goes!

Other songs by Haken:

Celestial Elixir (2010) - 16:57
Visions (2011) - 22:25
The Architect (2016) - 15:40

All three meet the criteria and are all excellent. Celestial Elixir has a great mix of different genres, and manages to cover various brands of intensity in one track. Visions definitely calls back to early DT epics, and I think it does a great job of it. The Architect is a perfect blend of the 80s sound Haken were going for on Affinity with the prog metal epicness of their first three albums. Great track.

Dream Theater have three songs that qualify:

A Nightmare to Remember (2009) - 16:11
The Count of Tuscany (2009) - 19:16
Illumination Theory (2013) - 22:18

However, while I really like all three, I don't believe they are of the impeccable quality we are searching for here (and certainly not on the level of early DT epics like A Change of Seasons or Octavarium).

A Nightmare to Remember might be too *metal* for what you're looking for. I genuinely love the track, and I think it does an excellent job building up to being super heavy, then mellowing out, and then transitioning back to heavy again. But after that it just drags on too long. It should have been cut down to the 12-14 min range and it would have been a lot stronger.

The first few minutes of The Count of Tuscany is among the most well-composed music I have ever heard. Modern prog at its finest - simultaneously technical and beautiful. But after that it just kind of plateaus. The lyrics are also not that great, and the song feels sort of "artificially" long courtesy of the lengthy Rudess ambient section. Although it sounds great, it feels like an extended pause before the final part kicks in, which itself feels like an unrelated "hidden track" rather than an organic conclusion to an epic song.

Illumination Theory has a lot going for it, but doesn't flow as well as some of the great prog classics. It also has another lengthy Rudess ambient section, giving it that "artificially long" feeling, rather than taking the listener on a genuine musical journey. I also think that, even though it has some good sections, none of them are great enough to stand up to the greats.

Empire of the Clouds by Iron Maiden meets the criteria (as someone else mentioned) and is - for the most part - pretty great (though perhaps it does drag toward the end).

But, if I'm allowed to break only one of the criteria per song I can offer you two genuine DT classics:

Octavarium (which hopefully needs zero introduction on a prog forum) was released 13 years ago (wow!), and Breaking All Illusions, which was released 7 years ago and falls short by a couple minutes (12:26) but is just as much of an epic as any other song. It's a genuine DT classic and has one of Petrucci's all-time great solos. It's a shame it gets overlooked by so many people simply due to being of the post-Portnoy period.

The only other song that comes to mind is The Baron by Mastodon (2009), but even then I'm stretching the time critera again (13:01) and it may be too *metal* for what you've asked. That being said, I definitely think that it (and the album as a whole, which is a bona fide masterpiece) is just as much a prog album as it is a metal album.

I also REALLY want to say The Odyssey by Symphony X (I guess I just said it anyway! haha), but now I'm stretching back 16 years. But damn - that album is 16 years old already?

Edited by ElliotYork - January 02 2018 at 06:43

"Seas of Change" by Galahad (2018) - 42:43

Frenetic Zetetic wrote: [QUOTE=paganinio]

Getting back to the topic, Tonerna by Kaipa Da Capo is IMO absolutely fantastic. It's a perfect archetype of what a sweet and satisfying symphonic epic should be.