The Astonishing

Until the release of their 2013 self-titled album, I think it’s safe to say that Dream Theater were in a healthy musical position. Despite the enormous loss of original drummer and band leader Mike Portnoy in 2010, the band managed to pull things together and release a great album in 2011, A Dramatic Turn Of Events, showing the progressive metal world that there where still gas left in the tank and that they were a band that the fans could still count on. With the release of their 2013 self-titled album, this flow started to falter a little bit. Sure, the album was good and it had the DT essence surrounding it, but you could still feel that there was something different going on, something that made you concered of what the band’s next move was. Little did we know that the next move would be one of the most inappropriate, useless and unnecessary albums released by a major band in the last 20 years, perhaps even of all time. I’m refering to their 13th studio album, The Astonishing, which was released in 2016.

When you look at the whole discography of Dream Theater, The Astonishing sticks out like a sore thumb in all ways possible. It’s the album that has the most tracks, it’s the album that has the longest runtime and it’s by far their most ambitious project to date. A concept album, The Astonishing tells the story of… truth be told, I still haven’t figured out what the concept is about. I know that it takes place in a dystopian future where music is forbidden and that there is a man, Gabriel, who is perceived as the saviour of the people because of his angelic voice. With the help of his voice, he will save the people from the tyrannic rule of Lord Nafaryus and create a world of peace and harmony. Don’t quote me on this synopsis. It might as well be false. Like I said, I don’t know what the concept is about. And truth be told, I don’t care.

There are few things that work on this album, and the flaws are more than obvious. To keep things straight, I will narrow the flaws down to four points.

1. The quantity of the album: The Astonishing consists of 34 (!) songs and has a runtime of 2 hours and 10 minutes. Who has the time to listen to an album of this length? Once or twice, fair enough, but on a regular basis? You can listen to 3–4 normal length albums in this timeframe.

2. The quality of the album: I’m going to say it straight out. The music isn’t good enough. The fact that a band like Dream Theater, with albums like Images And Words, Metropolis Pt.2: Scenes From A Memory, Awake and Train Of Thought in their catalog, were able to reach such a low level of songwriting on The Astonishing is not only remarkable but also sad. There are musical themes that are repeated throughout the album, but every time they appear, I get the feeling that they appear just to remember the listener that they exist and that they are a part of a bigger narrarive, a narrative that, like I said before, is impossible to understand. At least for me. Does this mean that all the songs are crap? Of course not. Given the quantity of this album, it would be an achievement to release 100 % garbage. Of course there are songs that are good, sometimes even great, but they are few and far between, and considering the length of the album it’s not worth taking the time to come to them. If I want to listen to songs from The Astonishing, which includes songs like ”Our New World”, ”A New Beginning”, ”Dystopian Overture”, ”The X Aspect” and ”Moment Of Betrayal”, I listen to them individually. There are enjoyable sections in other songs as well, but as soon as they reach momentum and you think that something awesome will happen, that momentum is immediately destroyed by more mellow drivel.

3. The sound of the album: Musically speaking, The Astonishing is more mellow than Dream Theater’s other albums, relying more on orchestral and atmospherical soundscapes than on heavy riffs and technical mayhem. They even added strings and collaborated with a choir in order to meet these purposes. There’s nothing wrong with this on paper but let’s be real. Who wants to hear Dream Theater do ballads for 2 hours straight? More power to you if you do. I don’t. When I listen to Dream Theater I want to hear heavy riffs, progressive chaos and occasionally a beautiful ballad. It was the combination of melodic beauty, heavy riffing and technical mastery that made me a fan of the band from the beginning, not just mellow nonsense. Many have jokingly called this album ”Disney Theater” and I definitely approve on this. Considering the large amount of cheesy vocal lines, cringy lyrics and orchestral arrangements, I can almost imagine James LaBrie standing in a dress on a Broadway stage singning these songs.

4. The concept is a mess: I have already explained this one so there’s not much to add. The only thing that is worth adding is that the concept is basically a reboot of Rush’s ”2112”, but while Rush managed to tell a similiar story in 20 minutes and pack it in a context of stellar musicianship and lyrical genius, Dream Theater tell it in a 2+ hour long torment, to the point where they even fail to deliver a statisfying conclusion It’s not like Dream Theater can’t create concept albums. Their IMO best album, ”Metropolis Pt.2: Scenes From A Memory”, is a concept album, but unlike The Astonishing, that album has a creative storyline that is easy to follow. It also has a cool plot twist towards the end, which lays the foundations for a statisfying conclusion. Sure, The Astonishing has a conclusion, but it’s not a well-written one and when it comes, it definitely leaves a sour taste in the listener’s mouth.

Are there any redeeming qualities about The Astonishing? Yes, but you have to dig deep to find them. The clearest example of a qualified achievement can be found in the individual performances, especially the ones by vocalist James LaBrie and keyboardist Jordan Rudess. Labrie, despite the more than obvious vocal struggles he’s had in recent years, manages to crank out an impressive performance, using his vocal abilities to narrate the stories of a large amount of characters. Given the circumstances, he shall be proud for his performance. So shall Jordan Rudess, whose playing on this album is much more melodic and mellow than on previous Dream Theater releases. The synthesizers are to a large extent replaced by pianos, which is a pleasant departure from the things that Rudess is normally associated with. Even though the album is a plague to listen to, I still applaude Rudess for going out of his comfort zone and delivering something different. It’s a nice slap in the face for those who say that he’s nothing but a shredder who lacks emotion and musical depth.

The big villian here, sadly, is guitarist John Petrucci. His playing isn’t bad. I think it’s physically impossible for John Petrucci to play bad. However, he wrote the lyrics and the majority of the music for this album and as the band’s leader, he is the one responsible for the album and for all the flaws mentioned above. Yet, the biggest question remains: Why? Why would he do this? Why would he waste his, and the other member’s, time, energy and talent on a mess like this? I can understand that he wants to do something different and broaden his creative framework but please… Don’t denigrate Dream Theater’s name with it. This album should had been released as a John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess solo album, a separate project that could have included a large amount of outside singers and musicians to narrate the concept. There was no reason to involve James LaBrie, John Myung and Mike Mangini in this project.

When I think about The Astonishing, I realize how much Mike Portnoy was needed. Not as a drummer, but as a creative force and a conceptual leader. He was the brain of Dream Theater together with John Petrucci, and with him at the gears, this album would never have seen the light of day, at least not in the Dream Theater context. He would have said to Petrucci that this project was a misstep that would have been better thrown in the trash can. But he couldn’t, and because of this, The Astonishing sticks out like a sore thumb in the Dream Theater cataloge, a wolf in sheep's clothing that haunts their discography and gives an otherwise perfect discography an unnecessary slap in the face.