The Astonishing

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Remember Images & Words, one of the greatest metal albums ever made? Or how about Awake, a prog masterpiece?

The Astonishing is only astonishing for one reason: It’s astonishingly bland. It’s two hours of Elton John-style piano ballads, muted and downtrodden technical wankery, and occasional dubstep interludes. You’d might as well just listen to one of Jordan Rudess’ many side projects. One of his solo albums would cost a lot less to purchase and would ask for a lot less of your time. They're also mostly a lot better than this hot mess that he and John Petrucci cooked up.

After Black Clouds & Silver Linings, Mike Portnoy’s departure had the band in a state of borderline creative turmoil. Mike Mangini, however, was a very welcome replacement, and he gave the band a more-than-solid drumkit presence on A Dramatic Turn of Events and on the band’s eponymous album. Look no further than Bridges in the Sky, Enigma Machine, or Illumination Theory for proof.

But The Astonishing is what happens when Mike Mangini is treated as a session musician. He’s turned way down in the mix, the mastering makes his famous “golden ratio” snare sound lifeless, and I can’t quite always differentiate his toms from Jordan Rudess’ keys. Though Mangini’s freeze-dried, electronic-sounding snare is on full display, that’s about all there is to hear. Even his bass drums-the anchor of damn near any metal album–sound like someone hitting a sack of cornstarch with a baseball bat. Dull, lifeless, and with no sustain to speak of. This is not a recipe for success, and it shows.

In addition to Mike Mangini’s sonic banishment, also noticeably absent from the limelight is bassist John Myung. It’s as if Jordan Rudess and John Petrucci decided that a rhythm section wasn’t worth having. Indeed, the volume and prominence levels devoted to Mike Mangini and to John Myung are depressingly, stunningly, and shamefully low. Listen, for example, to A Better Life. The rhythm section is lifeless. Incorporating the airiness and sparseness of Nick Mason with muted double-bass rolls and sophomoric bass frills, it’s little short of a musical embarrassment. It’s basically what would happen if someone were to throw a wet, fuzzy blanket over a speaker that happened to be playing a decently-mixed rhythm section.

And then there’s the storyline. A 2112-style dystopianism admixed sloppily with Quadrophenia-esque soul-searching, and then dashed with the former glory of Metropolis Pt. 2's murder mystery plot. How many different characters are there? It’s hard to say, though James LaBrie does his best to comically alter his voice to depict different antagonists. Who winds up victorious in the end? I’m not entirely sure, though I’ll figure out if I decide to buy the novella based on The Astonishing’s plotline.

Oh, yes. There’s a novella. That may be the album’s most laughable offense, if not the one that most thinly veils the band's self-indulgence. Tell me this: What kind of over-marketed, radio-friendly musical drudgery has a novella to go along with it? The only time that this has worked out remotely well for anyone is when Rush helped write a book based on the plot of Clockwork Angels, and the only reason that that wasn’t a complete disaster is that lyrical genius Neal Peart was at the helm. Make no mistakes about, though: John Petrucci is not Neal Peart. As someone who loves Dream Theater, I feel like a chump, honestly. I feel like Dream Theater made an album out of sheer self-importance, sold it for $18.99 on iTunes (no, that is not a typo), and then got even greedier and played their fans for suckers by releasing a whole line of shitty merchandise.

But the album’s single worst offense is its length. It’s two hours. Two hours of the same hyper-technical, minimally engaging sonic sludge. It’s not without its saving graces: Our New World, A New Beginning, Three Days, Dystopian Overture, and 2285 Ent’racte are all solid progressive metal songs. The main problem here is that, collectively, these listenable songs make up about 15% of the album in its totality. It’s too long to only have five songs worth hearing. Listening to music is an investment: You spend time and hope to gain some level of enjoyment. And considering the paltry returns juxtaposed with the temporal opportunity cost, The Astonishing isn’t a very good investment. 38/100.