Dream Theater - The Astonishing

The Astonishing amount of cheese. Like, Rhapsody levels of cheese. I can stomach Italian cheese. Dream Theater cheese? No.

I like recent Dream Theater efforts more than most people do and I love long and theatrical concept albums, so I'm a bit surprised that The Astonishing doesn't do much for me. I don't know... I was hoping that this album would blow me away like Scenes from a Memory does, but it's yet to even come close. My general take is that, even though there are a bunch of cool sections, they're strung together horribly and each piece is given far too little space to develop. It just sloppily jumps from section to section... and waaaaaaaaaaay too many sections are forgettable ballads. 

To my ears it´s their weakest effort yet.

DippoMagoo wrote: I've been feeling the exact opposite, tbh. I absolutely love the hell out of the album and feel it was made just for me, but everywhere I look everyone is bashing it to pieces. I mean, I tend to disagree with most people on almost anything, but this time it feels even worse than normal. It's pretty much classic DT mixed with later Ayreon, which couldn't possibly be a better fit for me.   And I'm out, because I like the album too much to get into drawn out discussions. Just wanted to drop that quickly and move on.

you don't need to get upset or worry because the album get more praise than bashing. I am the minority here in not enjoying this that much.
I'm not trying to be all negative, but I'm curious to see other people' point of view, whether positive or not.

I am really curious how this topic/poll will go. I keep reading this continuous praise for DT's last effort and I do not get it, what am I missing here because I am disappointed for the first time, for real, with DT.

so vote if a choice suits you or vote other opinion and explain briefly (or not)