New Dream Theater

...Same old disappointment. More throwaway crap from the Train of Thought vein.

Personally, I think the four studio albums DT released with Kevin Moore and Derek Sherinian are pure genius, beautifully written and (with minor nitpicks about I&W) beautifully produced. I could have lived with more bass in the mix on Awake, but as anyone who's listened to anything I've produced will know, you can tell I like the bass loud and clear. Those albums are internally diverse and richly three-dimensional, full of emotional twists and turns, smartly blending many styles without ever losing touch with the human connection that, IMO, needs to underlie music for it to be meaningful. They also seem part of a contiguous whole. And, to put it diplomatically, the albums they've done with JR have also had "Dream Theater" on the cover. Which isn't a criticism of Jordan, because I love his solo albums, both those he's done before joining DT and since. But the material DT have put out since he joined is chronically and almost pervasively uninteresting to me.