Dream Theater’s The Astonishing album paints a tale of a retro-futurist post-apocalyptic dystopia ruled by medieval style feudalism. It’s a place aching for a Chosen One to rise above the noise and defeat an Empire defined by the endless drone of noise machines and the illusion of safety in bland conformity.
In an interview with Revolver, Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci discussed the songwriting process for The Astonishing:
“A new album project is like a fresh and inspiring blank canvas, and I love that every couple of years you have the opportunity of reinventing, trying something new and starting from scratch. But given the history of the band, you do have to take all of that into account and consider what we’ve done already, what we haven’t explored yet, and what will not only keep us interested and fired up, but will also keep people who listen to the band excited, as well. You really have to deliver the goods — you can’t rest on your laurels, you can’t get lazy.”
Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess told La Grosse Radio about The Astonishing: “Well, the story is really about hope and it’s about the power of music for healing and bringing good energy and good spirit to people. It was a story that was written by John Petrucci . He originally thought of it, the seed of the idea, about two and a half years ago. And a little over a year ago, he presented it to the band as an idea to do our concept album, and we were all very excited about it; it seemed really great. So after he presented it to us, then we started to work on all the music for it.”
“…I think the inspiration comes from things like ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ and ‘Game Of Thrones’ and all these kind of fantasy, sci-fi stories. And it’s something that certainly John , who wrote the story, is into and all of us could really relate to. Especially from a musical point of view, to create the music for it, for me it was like doing a score for a film. So I was very comfortable with all the different genres of music that had to be composed, ’cause it was everything from electronic sounds and music — not so much, but there’s definitely electronics throughout the album — and also some more classical type of musical ideas to our usual prog kind of metal mixture.”
Watch the team at Lucion Media help Dream Theater recreate The Astonishing concept album on stage
Dream Theater : The Astonishing track listing:
Act I
1. Descent Of The NOMACS
2. Dystopian Overture
3. The Gift Of Music
4. The Answer
5. A Better Life
6. Lord Nafaryus
7. A Savior In The Square
8. When Your Time Has Come
9. Act Of Faythe
10. Three Days
11. The Hovering Sojourn
12. Brother, Can You Hear Me?
13. A Life Left Behind
14. Ravenskill
15. Chosen
16. A Tempting Offer
17. Digital Discord
18. The X Aspect
19. A New Beginning
20. The Road To Revolution
Act II
1. 2285 Entr’acte
2. Moment Of Betrayal
3. Heaven’s Cove
4. Begin Again
5. The Path That Divides
6. Machine Chatter
7. The Walking Shadow
8. My Last Farewell
9. Losing Faythe
10. Whispers In The Wind
11. Hymn Of A Thousand Voices
12. Our New World
13. Power Down
14. Astonishing