What do you think about Iconoclast?

[Marwen]

A bunch of 11 minute songs? It could be good. It could also be bad!

I might agree if I could think of one long SymX song that is bad. Below is a list of their 8+ minute songs.

The Accolade
DWOT
Walls of Babylon
Revelation
Awakenings
Odyssey
Edge of Forever
Lesson Before Dying
When All is Lost
Reign in Madness
Church of the Machine
Through the Looking Glass
Rediscovery 2

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

I would consider Communion and Accolade II "long" songs as well (at least to the average listener). I've also always considered Church of the Machine to start with P's synth part; I think that the intro on the album version is largely unnecessary.

Does anyone else want to hear A Lesson Before Dying re-recorded with Russ and Lepond? I also wouldn't mind a re-recording of some Damnation Game tracks, either.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Does anyone else want to hear A Lesson Before Dying re-recorded with Russ and Lepond?

Yes. I did back in 2004 when this was first suggested and I do now; only even more badly.

 

[Harris The Epic]

Does anyone else want to hear A Lesson Before Dying re-recorded with Russ and Lepond? I also wouldn't mind a re-recording of some Damnation Game tracks, either.

Uhh... Yes. Oh god, yes.

 

[Marwen]

Absolutely.

 

[Liampie]

Yes. That song and several others from the debut album have so much potential! Some verses need some work, but overall it's a really good song. I love the instrumental. From the weird jazzy section to the sinister piano/guitar combo followed by the wonderful keysolo. The moment when that keysolo enters is one of my favourite moments in early Symphony X. Amazing! And after the solos comes more sinister sounding piano work. Piano fading out, awesome guitar part starts, then the final chorus. We haven't had an instrumental part that good since 2002, imo.

 

[Isaac_de_Moorea]

... We haven't had an instrumental part that good since 2002, imo.

The interlude of Revelation and the Intro/Interlude of Iconoclast may be their better attempts, but no, we haven´t had any. I won´t mention the Interlude of WAIL, ´cause only the first half of it its awesome.

In other hand, I´ll surely love to hear a re-recorded version of A Lesson Before Dying. Holy shit, imagine the acoustic-guitar part à la Stairway to heaven singed by Russell!

:hotjump:

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

Unfortunately, the band seems to be going for the more commercial metal sound with their last two releases, and really long instrumental passages (Odyssey and Divine Wings come to mind) don't fit the bill. The closest we've gotten are the intro to Babylon and (as Isaac said) parts of Iconoclast. WAIL's instrumental section from the quiet verse in the middle to the "We pass the time away" part is incredible, but the rest of the song (up until the acoustic ending) doesn't do it for me.

 

[Sauna]

I've never liked the idea of a band doing new versions of their old songs. There's no point and it messes with the dignity of the originals. If the songs were turned into something completely different than the originals there might be some small appeal to it for me, but just doing updated covers is about the most uninspired and regressive thing possible.

Haven't the guys in the band been hinting at maybe writing some really epic tracks for the next album or something? Surely we'd all rather have that than rehashed old songs.

 

[Kenneth R.]

Agreed. ^

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

I've never liked the idea of a band doing new versions of their old songs. There's no point and it messes with the dignity of the originals.

This may make sense if the dignity of the first album wasn't completely destroyed by Rod Tyler.

 

[Marwen]

Regressive? What is so "regressive" about re-recording a great old song that suffers from crappy production and vocals, especially when it's just a small/free-time/side-project/bonus track kind of thing?

Such re-recording takes much less time to do than coming up with new stuff and so should not interfere with the regular progress of things. If it will, then yeah, obviously enough we'd all prefer new stuff.

PS. They did it before with Masquerade and it was so worth it.

 

[Postulate]

I don't know where the instrumental section in A Lesson Before Dying came from. It's really something else.

 

[Sauna]

Crappy production and vocals or no, the first album is what it is. Bands develop and us listeners should be able to hear that. Re-recording stuff to "fix" it destroys the spirit of the original music.

A quality live album/DVD with a lot of old tracks in the set, on the other hand...

 

[Harris The Epic]

Destroys the spirit of the original music? More like... makes it actually listenable.

 

[Liampie]

Usually I would agree with Sauna, but in the case of Symphony X's debut album using the songs to their full potential is more important than preserving the 'old spirit'. A Lesson Before Dying has a lot of potential to become so much more, in contrast to The Divine Wings of Tragedy or Through the Looking Glass. They shouldn't ever touch those songs. Debut album, different story...

 

[Kenneth R.]

Destroys the spirit of the original music? More like... makes it actually listenable.

And you probably enjoy re-made movie reboots with better special effects and sleeker, overproduced plot that alludes to modern politics too.

I agree with Sauna here, leave the past to rest and move on. Recreating it again is of little value. You don't see Rush re-recording their eponymous debut or King Crimson doing it. Studios try to push re-mastered versions, but even that is just gloss on the original piece.

 

[Harris The Epic]

They're not always good, but they're not always bad. It depends on what's being done, how it's done and how good the final product is.
What's true for movies isn't always true for music.

 

[Marwen]

^agreed.

Like I said, re-recording Masquerade with Russell is a good example. It brought that song to life for me (now whenever I want to listen to it I listen to the re-recording). It wasn't wasting time recreating the past or whatever you guys are talking about, just a bonus track in an awesome album. Lesson Before Dying would benefit even more from such re-recording that would make that lovely song listenable. There's nothing to lose here. It's not like the band will suddenly stop making new music and instead start recreating and remastering past material. They are not that lame/musically dead last time I checked.

 

[Kenneth R.]

Subtle but discernable difference:

A re-recorded album = not new, not interesting, rehash stuff.
A re-recorded song as a bonus track on an album of completely new stuff = bonus track.

Not the same.