Let’s not kid ourselves here. You will listen to it. We both know that.
The singles so far have kinda just been straight metal and not so proggy actually, which is a bit underwhelming tbh. I was hoping for more zany stuff. “Midnight Messiah” was alright, but it’s mostly in 4/4 the whole time. where’s the prog guys??! probably in the song titled “The Shadow Man Incident” which is 19 minutes long. My expectations are low, but at the very least I’m more curious in hearing their albums now that Portnoy is back than when they didnt have him.

I’ve seen a few people complaining that the art looks bad because it’s AI. But I’m not so sure that it’s AI as much as it’s just that Hugh Syme’s art has fallen off a cliff over the last 20 years. I assume Dream Theater use him for their art because he did the art for Rush and Rush’s album covers were usually pretty good (this is the same guy who painted the Grace Under Pressure” cover!). But his art has just gotten worse and worse as time has gone on. One hideous digital collage after another. And this new DT cover is one of his worst to date. So dark and dingy, no color at all. Maybe he did use some AI in the process but AI could probably do a better job than this. I dont know how the band sees this and says “yeah that’s fine”.

Jordan Rudess did one of those “hears a song for the first time” challenges with “Empire State of Mind” a while back and it’s HILARIOUS. Portnoy is at least able to a competent job coming up with parts to other songs. Rudess is NOT AT ALL. This is a super simple song but ruddess cant help himself from splooging “dance of eternirty” solos and goofy synth tones all over the thing. The second take gets even more ridiculous than the first. Laughed my ass off.

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