This sounds very promising. The song is miles ahead of anything from The Astonishing and it sounds way more proggy than Distance Over Time. The hype is slowly rising.

Ok song, albeit predictable

This is as if a machine learning algorithm was fed with Dream Theater instrumentals and then created a generic tune based on it.

I was bored from about 04:00 onwards....have to give it another chance soon, but at first listen not that interesting. And I'm a proghead.

9 and a half minutes of wankery with not a single memorable melody. I'm sure old school fans are happy, but to my ears this did absolutely nothing. We already know they can play like this.

Their best content in years, yet it sounds like them on autopilot, and still pales in comparison to their earlier stuff. Dream Theater has been bland ever since Portnoy left.

I see we all mostly agree, somehow they've become predictable and boring...

I think this is the best they could come out with in the last one decade or so but no brilliance at all required to do so as we all know what was their contribution in the said period. At least it made me think of waiting for the complete album to be released.

This feels like a direct continuation of Distance Over Time, which is not a good news, I hope the 20 minutes track gets them out of their autopilot

Written by Roman Doez on 15.08.2021 at 13:25

This feels like a direct continuation of Distance Over Time, which is not a good news, I hope the 20 minutes track gets them out of their autopilot

Distance had some good moments... Barstool Warrior and At Wit's End were both nice tracks. But overall, it does feel like that album (and now this single) were a kneejerk reaction to all the critique they received on The Astonishing. The pendulum has swung a bit too far in the other direction - i.e. lots of heaviness and wankery, but almost nothing innovative or melodic. At least with The Astonishing they were *attempting* to try something new and give us some memorable moments... now it just feels like "Okay, you want heavy? FINE HERE'S YOUR HEAVY!!"

It's their 15th album. Anyone who expects them to come up with something innovative should curb their expectations. You saw how it turned out last time with "The Arsetonishing". I doubt they will take such a risk again. One can only hope that the rest of the songs on the new album will be good enough for a few listens.

Written by Daniell on 16.08.2021 at 11:56

curb their expectations

You misspelled curb their enthusiasm

Written by AndreMarcos on 17.08.2021 at 20:43

Written by Daniell on 16.08.2021 at 11:56

curb their expectations

You misspelled curb their enthusiasm

Why?

Like most DT tracks...starts...great music...gets you excited... and then the vocals come in. ))

I have given this a couple of listens over the last couple of days and I still don't really understand why this doesn't really work for me. It's not bad, but it feels a bit devoid of emotion. Also the vocals, not sure if I'm a fan of some of the effects put onto them.

We'll see what the new album will bring. I did like the last one quite a bit (which was a huge improvement over "The Astonishing"), so let's hope this one will turn out to be as good as the last one.

Yes, there's good stuff in there, but as a song it doesn't hold my interest. The vocal melodies do nothing for me, and LaBrie is drenched in effects.