Black Clouds and Silver Linings...Thus Far

More details emerging on the new Dream Theater disc on Friday, as the band released the cover art and track listing to the public. Remember how Mike Portnoy tossed out some hints about how Black Clouds and Silver Linings (or, as my brain keeps translating it, Black Holes and Revelations) would sound like a good portion of Dream Theater's old catalog? It looks to me like they took that aesthetic to the cover art, too: the surreal grouping of objects makes me think of the designs Larry Fremantle did for Images and Words and Awake.

The song titles are intriguing, too: I'm guessing "A Rite of Passage" or "The Shattered Fortress" is the next 12 Step song and "The Count of Tuscany" screams "instrumental" to me. "A Nightmare to Remember" could be another edition the fantasy kick John Petrucci brought (with great effect, I thought) to Systematic Chaosm, while "Wither" seemed like it could be an Awake throwback at first glance until I saw Jordan Ruddess's comment about how they're bringing in a full choir sound and going gothic with the music - now I'm thinking it'll be something out of left field from what the band has done before.