Mr. Not

I've a re-awakened love for this band these past two years so I've been listening to them a lot, that said their combination of prog + emo / hardcore is unique and can''t be matched, not even by themselves That said their later works are better than I originally gave them credit for, but I still think their newer stuff is too over-produced. Claudio's heart is in the right place and he'll always be putting out good song until the day he dies, but things change.

I heard that in Grand Theft Auto Six you can steal six cars this time Also better graphics

Such a fun band

Something I used to do 10+ years ago but never anymore (b/c I don't use iTunes) is do a weighted average of each song in order to rank an album. I'm bored and waiting around right now and just curious enough, so I figured I'd do this for the Coheed albums and see how accurate my own rankings are up against this weighted average, ranking each song on a scale of 1 to 5 1. Second Stage Turbine Blade - 4.55 2. Good Apollo I'm a Burning Star IV - 4.38 3. In Keeping Secrets of the Silent Earth: 3 - 4.36 4. Year of the Black Rainbow - 4.18 5. Afterman: Descension - 3.88 6. The Color Before the Sun - 3.8 7. Vaxis I - 3.64 8. Vaxis III - 3.61 9. No World For Tomorrow - 3.58 10. Afterman: Ascension - 3.55 11. Vaxis II - 3.41 obviously I agree with my natural ranking of the albums over this one -- particularly when it comes to Afterman Ascension's placing, as that albums strong songs are very strong.

Cousins?

Reconsidering this a bit now, as I listened through their whole discog recently and Vaxis I is actually much better than I remember it being. Some duds but some others are genuine bangers -- Dark Sentencer, Unheavenly Creatures, Black Sunday (can't believe I overlooked this one before, I guess it just didn't connect the first few times I heard it), True Ugly, and All on Fire.. That said I'm going to have to re-rank and move Vaxis I -- everything else has remained the same though 1. In Keeping Secrets of the Silent Earth: 3 2. Second Stage Turbine Blade 3. Good Apollo I'm a Burning Star IV 4. Year of the Black Rainbow 5. The Afterman Ascension 6. The Afterman Descension 7. No World For Tomorrow 8. Vaxis I 9. The Color Before the Sun 10. Vaxis III 11. Vaxis II (Okay, not that significant of a change at all really, lol)

Stratovarius, with Matias Kupiainen - he's a better guitarist for sure, but more importantly with the departure of Tolkki the band became democratic and while they seem to have lost their peak now it was all uphill for a good while.

They p much were my first favorite band, discovered them in 2005 hearing "The Suffering" on FM radio. I do really enjoy The Dark Sentencer, as well as Comatose, and Blind Side Sonny.. Their three newest albums still have some good songs for sure.

The Vaxis albums are a chore As someone else pointed out to me, the songwriting hasn't even necessarily been on a downhill, but newer Coheed albums are overproduced and that's a big problem for them Coheed and Cambria 1. In Keeping Secrets of the Silent Earth: 3 2. Second Stage Turbine Blade 3. Good Apollo I'm a Burning Star IV 4. Year of the Black Rainbow 5. The Afterman Ascension 6. The Afterman Descension 7. No World For Tomorrow 8. The Color Before the Sun 9. Vaxis I 10. Vaxis III 11. Vaxis II

Listened to it for the fourth time and here's my two biggest critiques: The title track's vocal sampling is really weird and.. Lame!! In Objects Out Live Us every time that bass line hits I think back to Luminol and think about how underwhelming it is in comparison. Tried to keep an open mind, after all it's a very unique and proggy riff, but it sounds like an attempt from a high schooler's who's a prog fan without the knowledge of any of the theory - not being hyperbolic. So this time it got me thinking - wait, Steven's on bass again isn't he? And big surprise, he is. Really should get back to hiring bassists, dude. So both tracks are good but inconsistent and have their lackluster bits. That'd be fine if it was within a full-length album, but if you release two prog epic tracks on a single album and that's its entirety, you'd expect them to be masterpieces yeah?

Is the Alterview worthwhile?

Two of my favorite bands happened to put out new releases on the same day, looking forward to listening to them soon on my morning walk Coheed and Cambria - Vaxis III Steven Wilson - The Overview

I think my biggest critique of the album at this point is that the lyrical theme gets tiring (haha)

Revisited Systematic Chaos and have a new appreciation for it Parasomnia would be C-tier if not for The Shadowman Incident. My personal ascription for each tier list in the case of Dream Theater: S - Perfect album, A - Near perfect, B - Great, C - Good but quite inconsistent, D - I don't want to ever listen to this

Pagan's Mind is a very good lesser-known prog metal band I've been listening to quite a lot Lacking in the unbelievably talented "wow" factor like Dream Theater or Symphony X, but very enjoyable & melodic songs, adventurous atmospheres. I'm still going through their works, but Enigmatic: Calling seems to be my favorite album

Sad to see it's just two epics to be honest. Grace For Drowning was almost 2 hours long for reference (OK, I guess including the Raider II demo in that is cheating - but all the other outtakes are just as good as the first two album parts) :) Excited not only that it's a return to Prog, but to space rock - Up The Downstair anyone? Yeah, I know it'll be completely different... All else fails, just a couple more years until we have fully convincing AI generated music for all our once-favorite musicians. This is pretty good, almost there:

The Shadow Man Incident is my favorite song from the album by a good margin, the intro track made me wish they utilized the 8 string more but this song is all standard tuning and classic Dream Theater in many ways. There's a couple of blatant motif throwbacks nodding at Metropolis which still manage to be new and interesting, I didn't even catch the Dance to Eternity intro the very first time I listened because I was too pre-occupied with seeing if I could tap my fingers along with the crazy prog pattern, lol. That chorus (the one we get to hear two whole times during the 20 minute epic) "Night, it will be forever changed.." has to be one of the most melodically beautiful things LaBrie's ever done, and obviously the entire solo section is amazing. Also, Grep's right about the bass line during the "tango" bit 12 minutes in being a similar line to La Villa, only sped up and with more notes, but the core of the riff is strikingly similar. The rest of the album might just need time to marinate for me, but I'm honestly skipping straight to this track instead of listening to the full album because it's what's instantly clicked with me. This song is what I was hoping for with Portnoy's return.

I've still have only listened to the album a couple of times, the opening and closing tracks being my fav. according to RYM the sentiment is positive like it is here - it's ranked as their best work ever since their prime albums. (90's - '05) This was a nice watch. The friendship among the guys is genuine, no shade to Mangini b/c I know it's always difficult to fill in another's shoes after so many years. Myung's also speaking up more than ever without being prompted or called on - talk about a late bloomer :D

I'm listening and I hear it, but I'm doubting it's an intentional reference. I want to believe.

Not obsessed but one of my favorite recent finds for sure

I really enjoy In The Arms of Morpheus and The Shadow Man Incident.

OK, the full album's out in a couple days and I'm excited to listen to it despite being disappointed so far, and not being optimistic. I definitely want to share my first impression, but if the singles are any indication of the rest to come, which I believe they are - then this will be yet another "meh' post-Octovarium Dream Theater album I hardly ever listen to. I heard Night Terror for the first time just over a couple weeks ago without any knowledge of Portnoy's return and my initial reaction was "wow, Mangini's finally starting to sound more organic!" I decided I'd give the singles one more play through before going through with this post, and while they're finally growing on me a bit it's not by much, which is a shame. Here's what I wrote a few days ago in a group chat: I've listened to the newest three singles a few times each now, and I gotta say I'm disappointed. IDK how in depth I wanna go, but the best thing they've done in a long time is "Untethered Angel" and that song was released over half a decade ago at this point. With Portnoy back they're picking up where they left off with their 2009 style, darker more straight forward riffs/songs, and nothing about it stands out to me. It's very boring by their standards tbh. It seems like they decided to stop innovating ever since 2005's Octavarium, they should be looking to at least re-create something with that complexity and melodic-focused variety rather than going for dark, heavy-hitting metal. It's particularly depressing to see the arguable inventors of Prog Metal fall behind in the scene so badly, which is something I've been thinking for a while now (e.g. I believe Haken was handed the torch). Speaking of Haken, on the album before this one John broke out an 8 string guitar and basically did nothing notable with it other than have a lower chunkier riff than usual -- of all the band members I'd say John's the one who's failing to carry his weight. In their song Night Terror they hardly even make use of odd time signatures aside from during the solo, and even then that bridge is a little lackluster by their own standards. AI generated Dream Theater album coming our way. I know they can't create another Images & Words or Scenes from a Memory, or Octavarium, but I wish they'd use those albums as the blueprint rather than Train of Thought, Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds (which is what they seem to be using for this album). Where will this be on the new album? To sum up my opinion: Dream Theaters brighter music is always better than their darker.

Didn't believe it at first. RIP

unfortunately, and they keep going for shock value lol. it's their extra little revenue stream in their retirement.

I saw BEAT and it was amazing, Vai didn't overdo the shredding (typically) but did use some unwelcomed effects, namely the auto-talkbox (forget for which song). I also noticed he couldn't do Frame By Frame's rhythm guitar justice, and he would tap to compensate for his inability to alternate pick the riff as fast as Fripp did back in the 80's (can't blame him)