Review Summary: A change of pace
Dream Theater, a band known for their enormous songs with technical, over-the-top solos and a drummer that’s never holding back. On this record though, The band takes a different path. This time, they focus on songwriting and hold back on the instrumental wankery.
The Astonishing is a concept-album about a future fairy-tale, featuring some rebels fighting the empire with music. Yes, it’s as cheesy as it looks. But despite the cheese dripping all over the album’s storyline, it’s actually not as bad as it seems.
The band is backed up by an orchestra this time around. One would think that this is bound to totally ruin the record, since Dream Theater has always been such a bombastic band. But that’s not the case here, because every member of the band is holding back on his instrument. This is a great thing, but it also has its drawbacks. The songs become quite boring, since there are no sweet riffs or technical drumbeats. The absence of cool drumparts isn’t that wierd though, because the entire record was written by Petrucci and Rudess. I feel like the record could have been a lot better if this wasn’t the case. While listening to
The Astonishing the first time, I actually forgot that Myung was in the band, because the bass is basically inaudible. The drumparts on this record are also really lame, with Mangini just plainly following the music without adding anything even remotely exciting.
Of course not everything about this record is bad, the great thing about the members holding back on their instruments is that the melodies and orchestra have all the space they need. The vocal lines really amazed me in some places, like the chorus in ‘A Life Left Behind’ . LaBrie is perfect for these kind of songs. He sounds a lot better when not trying to be a heavy metal vocalist, these softer songs really make him shine. And because you aren’t distracted by sweep picking or out of place circus-music, the songs are exactly what they need to be.
But that’s where another weakness of the album comes in: Its length. Two hours and ten minutes is way too long for a record with 34 tracks, when more than half of them are ballads. The ballads aren’t the biggest issue on this record though, because the orchestra gives the songs some great new layers. Adding various instruments and a choir makes the most boring songs like ‘Act of Faythe’ and ‘Astonishing’ atleast listenable. It’s just the fact that there is way too much material. There are some amazing songs that really add something to Dream Theater’s discography, like ‘Three Days’, that has some great instrumental passages, with jazzy trumpets and blastbeats. ‘A New Beginning’ has an amazing chorus with an upbeat happiness that no one would have ever expected the band to write. It’s moments like these that make you feel like Dream Theater is back on track. Sadly enough, that feeling is completely absent when you are 2 hours in and challenged with yet another ballad, that is so much worse than ones like ‘A Life Left Behind’. Why they added the most boring songs at the end of such a long record is something I’ll never understand.
All things combined, this record isn’t as bad as you’d think it would be. I actually enjoyed it, since it’s different from anything Dream Theater has ever done before. It reminds me most of a mix between last record and the song ‘Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence’. Ofcourse it isn’t as good as a straight mash-up the two, but it’s not that far off. The songwriting and symphonics are a big plus, but it would have been a lot better if some content was left out, and Myung and Mangini contributed more to the songs.
