The Upcoming Albums Thread

Sweet!

Their album I Am Anonymous was my album of the year for 2012.

Sor far, for me, albums to look forward to:

Dream Theater

Serenity

Steven Wilson

Beyond The Black

Myrath

Headspace

Circus Maximus

Anciients

Megadeth

2016 already looks to be a promising year 

Serenity - Codex Atlanticus

Dream Theater - The Astonishing

I like the Serenity, the new guitar player does fine. The songwriting, for the most part, is fine. I do think that the symphonic/orchestra parts are taking over Serenity's sound too much though. They need to go back to that really huge, guitar-centric sound/production that Fallen Sanctuary & Death and Legacy both had. I'd give it a solid 3 stars, definitely worth picking up if you are a fan of Serenity, but it's not as good as their first 3 albums. Maybe better than their last album War of Ages, though.

The new Dream Theater…….excellent playing (as usual), really great production, you can even hear John Myung very clearly. Less metal/heavy rock, and much much more a progressive sound. I don't want to say it's a '70s prog rock sound, but it does have a bit of '70s prog feel to it, even if the music sounds more modern.

That said, I think it's an album I won't listen to much. It's just not keeping my interest for the most part. Disc 1 has 20 tracks, but many of them are interludes/segues into the next track, and not much 'song' going on. Even the few longer songs on disc 1 sometimes seem as they are cut off abruptly and on to the next track. Disc 1 is therefore more like 1 long song, split into 20 parts. Disc 2 is more song oriented, a few interludes, but mainly songs on the 14 tracks. Disc 2 keeps my interest a bit longer. I would bet that live, played front-to-back, complete with visuals, The Astonishing will be great in concert. As a complete album though, I'd give it 3.5 stars. Again, an album every Dream Theater fan should own. Casual DT listeners should maybe skip it though.