Now -- what are you listening to? V2

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/album/hail-spirit-noir/oi-magoi

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/album/wodensthrone/curse

I've always liked this one a lot and time spent away from it hasn't changed that. 

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/album/dream-theater/systematic-chaos

So far revisiting their stuff has made me surprised in both a positive and negative sense. Some albums I found I liked a lot more than I recalled, such as Train of Thought, while others have left a much more lukewarm impression, such as Octavarium. 

I think all of the ones I've replayed so far also make The Astonishing seem all that more bland. I've only played The Astonishing twice so far as I haven't found the willpower to spend another two hours with it yet. My rating after a second listen moved up to a 3.5 but listening to their older work makes me want to drop that back to 3.0 without evening listening to it again. 

Really enjoying these guys.

Exarsis, fantastic old school politically-conscious thrash. There are some really great riffs and grooves on the album, you may like them. 

I haven't started a review for it yet, though I have a few thoughts in mind that I want to talk about, not least among them the rock opera thing.

My re-visit to Systematic Chaos has gone more the way of Octavarium. I never did rate this one as high as the album's either side of it, but my appreciation of it has definitely slipped a little. I actually really like both Constant Motion and The Dark Eternal Night, but the rest of the album isn't doing as much for me. I guess I'll be lowering this one to a 3.5, which is another reason I think my final The Astonishing rating will end up a 3.0 (or perhaps even lower), as I still find Systematic hell of a lot more interesting so it would be wrong to rate them on the same tier. Professional but uninspired is how I feel about The Astonishing right now. 

Those are my favorites from that album as well, I don't feel like those songs get enough appreciation.

In general I don't think the more recent DT gets enough appreciation, the most recent two albums aside. Black Clouds & Silver Linings (which will probably be the next DT I revisit) has always been one of my favourites by them overall and I even have quite fond recollections of A Dramatic Turn of Events, yet those two always tend to be rated quite low.

NP:

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/album/darkened-nocturn-slaughtercult/hora-nocturna

I'm definitely in a black metal mode lately.