It is still growing on me a bit, but this is pretty bad for a Dream Theater album. This should be graded harshly, because they can do better. There are some really cool moments on the album, but it really seems to be a mediocre effort.
Also, to note something that is absolutely unacceptable from Dream Theater. I was alerted that the song Never Enough sounds a lot like the band Muse. They sent me the Muse song "Stockholm Syndrone." Really.....this is pitiful for "Never Enough." It's a cool song, but it is completely ripping off Muse. This isn't "paying tribute," this is completely copying another band's style. The chorus of "I Walk Beside You" is completely U2, but the whole song isn't like that, so I can deal with that, it also sounds pretty nice.
Besides those specifics, there's the whole "let's try and add lots of generic modern rock elements to prog" going on throughout a whole lot of the album that I also don't think should be acceptable material from Dream Theater.
I also would like to comment that John Petrucci overuses downtuning WAY too much on this album. That's not innovative or creative at all. As I said elsewhere, it used to be that he could write a nice, tasteful song with a seven-string that used it effectively (Lie, The Mirror, The Dance Of Eternity). On this album it almost seems like if it's a faster paced song he's automatically downtuning to C or something on his guitar.
Again, maybe it seems harsh, and it's a decent album, but it's Dream Theater. I know what they can do, so this isn't good enough. They need to realize that they're hardly the only prog band out there and they need to actually work and come up with new ideas to make a great album, not just recycle things, especially from other bands. There's a difference between, "let's add a bit of U2 feel to this song" and "let's be Dream Theater doing Muse in this song." Quit "paying tribute" and be more original.
