The Astonishing
A two-hour concept album about creative musicians battling institutional enforcement of electronic cacophony in the year 2285, *The Astonishing* tones down Dream Theater’s super-musicianly dexterity somewhat in service of its plot. Emphasis goes to piano parts, jazz touches, classical choirs, and orchestral arias such as the one in “Act of Faythe.” But amid all the multicharacter rock opera, riff-shredders like “Our New World” still connect on their own, while “When Your Time Has Come” works as a miniature version of the whole project.
Few bands could have conceived of, let alone pulled off, the exercise in excess that Dream Theater have with The Astonishing.
Coming into a DREAM THEATER album, one sometimes suspects the band is out to build their own "Tales From Topographic Oceans" minus YES's copious splooges of ultra-weirdness—the latter being a double album both revered and reviled. DREAM THEATER's latest work, "The Astonishing", is hardly "Topographi...
The Astonishing, Dream Theater's latest sprawling epic, seeks to both add a little juju back to a staid and true formula