Thomas Miller = Symphony X
- Thread starter Cogluotobusisletmesi
- Start date
That's pretty difficult to guess what level Thomas Miller was involved with V. It's like listening to metropolis p2 on the Falling Into Infinity Demos, and then go out saying Scenes from a Memory got heavy influences from Derek Sherenian and the band didn't do shit just recycled his ideas. That would be really dumb. Not only that, in SX's case we don't even have any way of comparing what Twilight song was with what it became. It's just in the highly hipotetical field, like discussing "If X hadn't born" or "If Y didn't happened", it concludes nothing and take us nowhere.
CantoX
Member
This is how it is when you first start out with your band:
"Yeah man!!! Our band is gonna be so original! We're gonna be writing and performing music like no band before and we're going to be sooooooo unique and we're gonna have so many loyal fans to our music!!!"
Then after 2-4 albums, where no one is coming to your shows, you don't have any airplay, you don't have a music video, you're still living with your mom and dad, and you barely make enough money to support your constant drinking, wife, and 2 children, it's like this:
"Man, our music is so original man!!! But you know, that one song on our last album that was 3:30 long, had fast riffs, and almost no keyboard on it except a tiny keyboard solo that just mimiced the guitar, people were so into that song and they were banging their heads!!! Maybe we should write more of those songs!!!"
So then, people finally are coming to the shows, the band is making money, and they're actually getting the recognition they deserve. Then they're like:
"Okay, we made a couple more short fast metal songs, why don't we make a whole ALBUM with short fast metal songs, and maybe have 2-3 songs in our old style but still make it heavy so the crowd can bob their head along with us!! Yeah!!!"
"Their sound" is still there, its just now a lot easier for people who are not into their music to listen to. This has happened with most bands, including Dream Theater, Metallica, and now even Symphony X.
"Yeah man!!! Our band is gonna be so original! We're gonna be writing and performing music like no band before and we're going to be sooooooo unique and we're gonna have so many loyal fans to our music!!!"
Then after 2-4 albums, where no one is coming to your shows, you don't have any airplay, you don't have a music video, you're still living with your mom and dad, and you barely make enough money to support your constant drinking, wife, and 2 children, it's like this:
"Man, our music is so original man!!! But you know, that one song on our last album that was 3:30 long, had fast riffs, and almost no keyboard on it except a tiny keyboard solo that just mimiced the guitar, people were so into that song and they were banging their heads!!! Maybe we should write more of those songs!!!"
So then, people finally are coming to the shows, the band is making money, and they're actually getting the recognition they deserve. Then they're like:
"Okay, we made a couple more short fast metal songs, why don't we make a whole ALBUM with short fast metal songs, and maybe have 2-3 songs in our old style but still make it heavy so the crowd can bob their head along with us!! Yeah!!!"
"Their sound" is still there, its just now a lot easier for people who are not into their music to listen to. This has happened with most bands, including Dream Theater, Metallica, and now even Symphony X.
Alien Mantis
Galactic Explorer
Too much speculation going on here.
The truth is, Romeo was always the main songwriter. Miller used to write most of the lyrics. All the bandmembers help contribute to the songs. There is no conspiracy here. Allen writes alot of the lyrics now. People complain because the last two albums are not like the older Symphony X stuff. Well too bad. The band writes and plays what they want to. I am thankful they keep making new albums! I LOVE everything these guys do! It's all amazing. Some stuff I like better than other stuff, but it's all excellent. I lean towards the heavier side of metal, so I LOVE "Iconoclast". It's some of the baddest $hit I ever heard in my life. I don't want Symphony X to just keep doing exactly the same things they have already done. I think it's great if they want to go dark and heavy. Paradise Lost was a great album. The only problem was, it was too short! We waited four years for 60 minutes of new music. That sucked. ICONOCLAST is a 2-cd digipack. 12 tracks. 12 AWESOME TRACKS I might add! I have no idea why people are complaining about it. I think it's the whole "prog snob" thing. Because if you claim to be a fan of METAL.... there is NO WAY you can say anything bad about "Iconoclast". It's a full-throttle assault from start to finish. Not a weak track on there. The guys put a ton of work into it, and it shows. Some of the greatest crushing rhythms since PANTERA and ANNIHILATOR!
Rullo's drumming is on another level, and Allen's vocals are as strong as ever. Excellent tasteful keyboard work by Pinella, and LuPond does a killer job of bringing the earth-shaking bottom end to the compositions. What can I say about Romeo... the guy is a genius, and he just slays on the Caparison.
Romeo is the best thing that ever happened to heavy metal music. PERIOD.
It's on a whole new level now. Symphony X is the bar to which all other metal music is measured against. They always have been.
The truth is, Romeo was always the main songwriter. Miller used to write most of the lyrics. All the bandmembers help contribute to the songs. There is no conspiracy here. Allen writes alot of the lyrics now. People complain because the last two albums are not like the older Symphony X stuff. Well too bad. The band writes and plays what they want to. I am thankful they keep making new albums! I LOVE everything these guys do! It's all amazing. Some stuff I like better than other stuff, but it's all excellent. I lean towards the heavier side of metal, so I LOVE "Iconoclast". It's some of the baddest $hit I ever heard in my life. I don't want Symphony X to just keep doing exactly the same things they have already done. I think it's great if they want to go dark and heavy. Paradise Lost was a great album. The only problem was, it was too short! We waited four years for 60 minutes of new music. That sucked. ICONOCLAST is a 2-cd digipack. 12 tracks. 12 AWESOME TRACKS I might add! I have no idea why people are complaining about it. I think it's the whole "prog snob" thing. Because if you claim to be a fan of METAL.... there is NO WAY you can say anything bad about "Iconoclast". It's a full-throttle assault from start to finish. Not a weak track on there. The guys put a ton of work into it, and it shows. Some of the greatest crushing rhythms since PANTERA and ANNIHILATOR!
Rullo's drumming is on another level, and Allen's vocals are as strong as ever. Excellent tasteful keyboard work by Pinella, and LuPond does a killer job of bringing the earth-shaking bottom end to the compositions. What can I say about Romeo... the guy is a genius, and he just slays on the Caparison.
Romeo is the best thing that ever happened to heavy metal music. PERIOD.
It's on a whole new level now. Symphony X is the bar to which all other metal music is measured against. They always have been.
Alien Mantis
Galactic Explorer
I totally disagree.
If you actually KNOW the guys from Symphony X, you wouldn't say this.
Romeo isn't going to compromise because he wants to sell more albums. They write and play the music they WANT to. Romeo and the guys want to do more darker, heavier stuff. Hell yeah, I LOVE that! I would cry if they started going SOFT on me! I want them to be hardcore. After all.... it's all about METAL! Symphony X is not Dream Theater or RUSH, and they are not John Williams. Thank God Romeo is true to his roots. He loves METAL, and so do I. "Iconoclast" is EXACTLY what I was hoping they would do! I was blown away from the very first listen. Killer heavy stuff! It's as if they wrote this album just for me. We already have DWoT, and V, and Odyssey. Those albums are also amazing. Everything Symphony X has ever done is amazing. I love ALL of it. Nobody does it like Symphony X. NOBODY. I am sick and tired of people complaining that Symphony X sold-out. Or they are not as good as they used to be. Or they are not "progressive" enough anymore.
I guess some of you lost your BALLS. Did you forget this is HEAVY METAL ???
ICONOCLAST is the definition of HEAVY METAL. PERIOD.
No, this thread is for serious speculation as to why Symphony X has lapsed into a creative rut.
Calling Romeo a genius may be going a bit too far, let's not compare him to Bach or Barlow.
_Gentleman of_the Snow_
Prog' Drummer
I totally disagree.
...
I guess some of you lost your BALLS. Did you forget this is HEAVY METAL ???
ICONOCLAST is the definition of HEAVY METAL. PERIOD.
"We" didn't want heavy metal; we wanted progressive metal. I don't listen to music so I can be considered a badass.
The fact that Romeo and others do not even consider SX prog is beyond me. There is almost nothing non-prog about Divine, V, or Odyssey.
The theme is only presented in the atmosphere and lyrics, something you cant come up with subconsciously. Music wise is a different story.
By definition, progressive rock/metal cannot stay the same forever. The entire point of progressive music is to constantly do something different. In my honest opinion, playing neoclassical metal and the same odd time signatures for 10+ years is the exact opposite of progressive music. Sure, they do a little bit less rhythmic experimentation and less neoclassical melodies, but they're still progressive in my book. The music SX is currently writing is still far from "normal" metal music.
This new stuff sounds pretty much as progressive as any of their older albums, just heavier. Too early to make a final statement, but Iconoclast might become my favourite SX album. The sounds, the riffs, the solos, Russell's vocals, drums, basses, absolutely brilliant! I have no problem with the lyrics either. Well, maybe the title track would be even more brilliant with better chorus. Children of a faceless god and The Lords of chaos are the weakest tracks, but all the rest are either good or excellent.
Okay, first of all Romeo is a metal musician, and unless you too grew up listening to real metal you wouldn't understand. You'll probably think it's all about "trying to be considered badass" or some stereotypical shit.
Second, he IS a progressive musician, but not in the stereotypical "prog metal" sense which has nothing to do with REAL prog.
Romeo doesn't like to subscribe to labels such as "symphonic progressive power metal" BECAUSE he's a real progressive musician, and real progressive musicians don't like to have that kind of stylistic limitations imposed on them. If you seriously think Symphony X is "supposed" to stick to a particular thing, or keep making nothing but DWOT's and V's, then you are basically saying they aren't progressive.
Exactly.
One of the things Symphony X does well is not sounding like a broken record (like certain big "prog" metal bands these days). They paint a different picture with every album and they do it very well musically (even on my least favorite albums by them).
This album kicks MAJOR ass especially in a metal sense, and if you don't like it then you don't like it. No body expects you to like ALL their albums, and most certainly no body cares if you seriously think they "sold out" or something.
Too much speculation going on here.
The truth is, Romeo was always the main songwriter. Miller used to write most of the lyrics. All the bandmembers help contribute to the songs. There is no conspiracy here. Allen writes alot of the lyrics now. People complain because the last two albums are not like the older Symphony X stuff. Well too bad. The band writes and plays what they want to. I am thankful they keep making new albums! I LOVE everything these guys do! It's all amazing. Some stuff I like better than other stuff, but it's all excellent. I lean towards the heavier side of metal, so I LOVE "Iconoclast". It's some of the baddest I ever heard in my life. I don't want Symphony X to just keep doing exactly the same things they have already done. I think it's great if they want to go dark and heavy. Paradise Lost was a great album. The only problem was, it was too short! We waited four years for 60 minutes of new music. That sucked. ICONOCLAST is a 2-cd digipack. 12 tracks. 12 AWESOME TRACKS I might add! I have no idea why people are complaining about it. I think it's the whole "prog snob" thing. Because if you claim to be a fan of METAL.... there is NO WAY you can say anything bad about "Iconoclast". It's a full-throttle assault from start to finish. Not a weak track on there. The guys put a ton of work into it, and it shows. Some of the greatest crushing rhythms since PANTERA and ANNIHILATOR!
Rullo's drumming is on another level, and Allen's vocals are as strong as ever. Excellent tasteful keyboard work by Pinella, and LuPond does a killer job of bringing the earth-shaking bottom end to the compositions. What can I say about Romeo... the guy is a genius, and he just slays on the Caparison.
Romeo is the best thing that ever happened to heavy metal music. PERIOD.
It's on a whole new level now. Symphony X is the bar to which all other metal music is measured against. They always have been.
I listen to all kinds of metal, including some of the more extreme. If I want a more "in your face"/heavier style of metal there are tons of bands I will go listen to. This is the exact reason why I still like the last two albums decently, but at the same time why I have been disappointed in them. SyX was my favorite band because their music offered not only something I loved, but something no other band could come close to offering as well.
I can still hear SOME of the old SyX elements throughout the last two albums; however, the increase in heaviness of the sound engineering and the more simplistic song structures to appeal to a wider audience doesn't differentiate them enough from other bands anymore for me to still consider them my favorite band. I have discovered so much music over the last decade since first discovering SyX, and since they are now trying to bring in these more common metal elements to their sound I feel they have lost most of their uniqueness. Also, I don't understand how just doing something different from album to album makes a band progressive? It means you should be doing something that hasn't been done a thousand times over. SyX have been doing the opposite by trying to be more and more like just another heavy/power metal band and ditching most of the elements that seperated them from the norm.
I like Iconoclast pretty well, probably even a little more than PL; however, they are quite disappointing albums for being SyX albums. The last two albums have almost constant heaviness, not just from the guitars, but from the vocals as well. Because of this, and the lack in variety, the songs start to blend into one another and you sometimes even forget what song your listening to. These problems also cause a situation to where I find it hard to sit down and listen to the full albums from start to finish (especially Iconoclast due to it being a much longer double disc album). They should change it up a bit more thoughout. For example, they could maybe have a decently heavy song, but maybe Russ could tone down the agressiveness in his voice a bit for once. I have always believed that too much of one thing is bad no matter what it is, which is also another reason why I love older SyX so much. Variety balances out things enough to where they don't become tiresome; also, I believe that variety will accentuate things and make them more powerful. For example, if there is a song where Russ is singing majestically about the woman he loves, but then there is a moment where someone does some sort of harm to her (in the lyrics of course) and his vocals suddenly become aggressive. This sort of thing conveys more emotion and makes a song more memorable while also staying true to balance and variety. The same theory could be applied to any other instrument as well.
As it is now there is just barely enough elements in their music to make them still recognizable as SyX; however, they lack the uniqueness in their songwriting to make them my favorite band rather than just one of my favorite bands.
Probably because you only hear metal you couldn't catch other bands references in the older SX albums. And if you listen to all kinds of metal, please tell me ONE BAND that is similar to SX. Not rip-off bands, but what you would consider to be in the same genre. I wouldn't even bother trying to point any band. Iconoclast has a lot of other METAL references (pantera, meshuggah, metallica, etc), that doesn't take away the bands originality.
Their first albums sound to me like iconoclast in the big picture- there's no one doing METAL or PROG METAL or whatever METAL you called it like SX. I guess most people agree in this point.
People who love old symphony X, stick to their old albums. When I'm fed up with Iconoclast, I listen to V. Damn. It's that easy.
And why going simpler has always to be associated with trying to sell and appeal to the masses? Pink floyd went simpler on Dark Side of the moon, and that's one of the best albums EVER. The "mass industry" argument is so old and lame.
If people want to be underground and alternative, give up money, go make your own clothes and feed on solar beams or move to Cuba.
Kenneth R.
Cináed
With all of the logical fallacies being applied here left and right, and with people obviously 100% behind the band no matter what they do (blind faith anyone?), nevermind mentions of "if you knew the band..." do you then? :: I am done attempting to put sense in your heads.
metalxmetalx
Member
- May 6, 2011
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CantoX
Member
I totally disagree.
If you actually KNOW the guys from Symphony X, you wouldn't say this.
Romeo isn't going to compromise because he wants to sell more albums. They write and play the music they WANT to. Romeo and the guys want to do more darker, heavier stuff. Hell yeah, I LOVE that! I would cry if they started going SOFT on me! I want them to be hardcore. After all.... it's all about METAL! Symphony X is not Dream Theater or RUSH, and they are not John Williams. Thank God Romeo is true to his roots. He loves METAL, and so do I. "Iconoclast" is EXACTLY what I was hoping they would do! I was blown away from the very first listen. Killer heavy stuff! It's as if they wrote this album just for me. We already have DWoT, and V, and Odyssey. Those albums are also amazing. Everything Symphony X has ever done is amazing. I love ALL of it. Nobody does it like Symphony X. NOBODY. I am sick and tired of people complaining that Symphony X sold-out. Or they are not as good as they used to be. Or they are not "progressive" enough anymore.
I guess some of you lost your BALLS. Did you forget this is HEAVY METAL ???
ICONOCLAST is the definition of HEAVY METAL. PERIOD.
Lol, that is the most vaguest post I have ever read in my life. You could justify ANY BAND with the stuff you just said. Just to prove how vague it really is, I'm going to copy paste your post but change "Symphony X" to Metallica, "Heavy Metal' to Country, and "Iconoclast" to Load.
Anyways dude, I like Iconoclast, but that's just my theory on why they're doing heavier stuff. Did they really sell out? Who knows.. but I like this album and I bought it cause I like Symphony X and the music is good.
Really???
This disc certainly sounds very much the same throughout from start to finish much like PL did and it especially seems to have many moments where I go this sounds familiar...
Suspyre and Empyrios are two which have made better music these past few years then Symphony X....
You can't make this stuff up... Too funny!
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