# Dream Theater's The Astonishing



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Dream Theater's new album is out, and it's fantastic! Their 30+ years into their career, have just made their 13th album, and it really is one of their best. They continue to push the envelope. This time around they've made an over two hour double-album full blown rock opera. It's all about a dystopian future world where music and freedom of expression is all but forbidden and the only music that exists is made by machines call Nomacs. There is an oppressive tyrannical kingdom and a rebellion in which a man named Gabriel has been found with the gift of music created by real humans, something everybody has long since forgotten about. Him and his brother are leaders of the rebellion against the tyrannical empire. The story is complete with eight characters, even a map! They really went all out with creating this world and storyline.

Besides the concept itself, the music is wonderful in my opinion. The music suits the story perfectly. James Labrie sings all the different characters, and if you know the story, the characters are all more or less clearly distinguishable. There might be less heavy parts than in previous releases, and DT fans have bemoaned it as "balad heavy", but I just think that's the nature of the story and the music serving to suit the story. This far in their career and they're still doing something new. They've always written the music first, then put vocals to the instrumental song afterward, while this time they did the exact opposite. I'm an admitted fanboy, but this CD had me tearing up, almost crying and sobbing about three times. I really can't recommend it enough for those who have a taste for prog rock, rock operas, or anything like that.

The entire album is available on youtube on DT's own youtube channel, however I think it would be easier to listen to this link as it DT's youtube channel has it in individual songs rather than one large chunk.






I strongly suggest anybody listening to it to read these track descriptions either before, or while they listen to each song. They elaborate on many things only just touched upon in the vocals and greatly help in understanding the story.

http://www.dreamtheater.net/theastonishingtracks

I did not find it necessary to read the lyrics. Reading the summary of each song in the previous link was enough for me to get who was talking and what was going on. However, here is a link to lyrics that even says who is saying what line. This is in fact how they have it in the CD booklet. The lyrics are printed almost like a musical script, with location and names of people saying the lines.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw98b2EOpWbQb3BoRzZWOE5QNFU/view


----------



## NordHK (Feb 1, 2016)

An outstanding album I must say. Dream theater will always be my fav progressive metal band. Thanks for the info


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> ...This time around they've made an over two hour double-album full blown rock opera. It's all about a dystopian future world where music and freedom of expression is all but forbidden and the only music that exists is made by machines call Nomacs. There is an oppressive tyrannical kingdom and a rebellion in which a man named Gabriel has been found with the gift of music created by real humans, something everybody has long since forgotten about. Him and his brother are leaders of the rebellion against the tyrannical empire. The story is complete with eight characters, even a map! They really went all out with creating this world and storyline.


Sounds like Magma


----------



## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I love DT but I think they've fallen off in recent years, but your enthusiasm has me looking forward to this one.


----------

