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Dream Theater: Black clouds and silver linings

26/02/10 || Altmer

I’m a young ‘un. Having but recently reached the ripe age of twenty in the preceding fall, I’m not old-school enough to get all the old bands. (I hear cries of blasphemy. Heathen, Heathen, HEATHEN!!! Fuck you too. I can dislike the Old School if I want to, simply because, like now, 80% of it was bad. The only difference is that now it’s 90%. I attribute the increase to metalcore.) Anyway, this kid that I am, angsty, chock full of testosterone, and growing up in Nothingville, Netherlands, I craved my music heavier. But nobody dropped me into a pool full of Carcass, Death and Bolt Thrower, so I weaned myself on soft “metal”. The stuff most of you will hate, and despise, only to have gay dreams about the band members which you secretly hide from every other fellow metalhead. I know you’re out there. You’re all gay. All of you.

Now what has this to do with such bands as Dream Theater (who after all, are some of the oldest farts in the metal scene)? Well, I got into metal by listening to this band – which is surprising, since I’m not old skool enough to get the impact of something like Images and Words when it came out. I didn’t watch “Headbangers Ball” when I was 3 years old, and I certainly didn’t know that James wore Napalm Death t-shirts. There is no back in the day, because for me, back in the day, all we had was shitty nu-metal and blink-182, and I wanted something different. And I found it in the shape of the progressive metal of the time, a different thing. Now I’m a death metaller. But before that, I was all hair-blowin’-in-the-wind solos, too long songs, and high-pitched wailing. It’s over now. I’m a real man. Thank fuck.

Back to the album at hand, Dream Theater knocked me out with “Images and pussy” and “Metropenis, part two: scenes from a porn movie” and I was hooked. But we all know that after “Six degrees”, Dream Theater hasn’t remotely been able to write anything as good as those two masterpieces (and “Awake”, let’s not forget that album, ladies and gentlemen), and they kept getting lost in odd time signatures, pseudo-metal riffs, and a new penchant for Mike Portnoy’s half-yelled, half-spoken word parts. I liked “Octavarium” and “Systematic chaos”, but they weren’t the DT I remembered. And for this new album, I had equally low hopes.

Fortunately, they weren’t smashed to bits like I expected. Sure, they’ll still never top “Awake”. They won’t write another Pull Me Under. But they’re at least back on track, although the Dream Theater Album Every Two Years Machine does hit a few snags here and there, which I will come to later. The good thing is that despite the fact there are only six tracks, Dream Theater have found out how to craft their material again to some extent. It feels like six solid songs and not some extended jam sessions (which are present like on every DT album, but they’re slightly more restrained here).

The riffs sound like actual riffs, not half-finished noodling. There’s even some nods here and there to heavier bands, like Opeth (are these guys drinking Blackwater Park liquid now?), Metallica, and Pantera, as opposed to the (often boring) prog rock stuff these guys would delve into. There’s a bit of everything here – some thrash-style guitar riffing, some moody melodic moments, some pretty heavy stuff by these guys’ standards, and Portnoy attempting to do a growl on the opening song. There’s even blastbeats.

Another plus is that the production fits the music, it is very grand and sweeping (just listen to the end of “The count of Tuscany” for an example). Everything is very crisp and clear and audible, and it sounds like they worked their ass off to make everything sound pristine. They did a good job as well. Even the Rush-thefts of “The best of times” sound good and original, making them look less like copycats than they used to. They can pass as influenced again, not as a cover band. Of course DT have their own sound, but they almost started loving the Muse too much (and a lot of other bands while we’re at it).

The bad thing is that the band’s lyrics have taken a turn for Teh Gay. In the beginning, they weren’t always that great, but at least they weren’t annoying. But when I hear the lyrics to “The best of times” (emotional because it’s about a parent passing away, shitty because it is cheesier than a factory in Alkmaar). I’m sorry, but I am not fucking taking lines like the following seriously:

These were the best of times
I’ll miss these days
Your spirit lit my life each day

My heart is bleeding bad
But I’ll be okay
Your spirit guides my life each day

Splendid, Mr Portnoy. Would you like me to serve a cheese factory with that?

Then there’s this gem:

Open up open up
Don’t struggle to relate
Lure it out
Help the memory escape

Still this barrenness consumes me
And I feel like giving up

Mr Petrucci failed his 8th grade poetry project, as you can see.

Though apart from the stupid stuff (lyrics, Portnoy’s attempts at half-growls), the music is vintage Dream Theater, sounds more like their 90s stuff than any of the previous 40 albums, and actually sounds invigorated and inspired. If you can look past the cheese, Dream Theater have given us the best that we can expect from them in their post-heyday years. They’re still fags, but they used to write good music on top of that – I thought they’d lost the plot for a while, but they’re back to decent songwriting now, at least for a while. And nobody can deny these guys are about the best musicians on the planet anyhow.

In comparison to most other shit out there, it’s probably pretty good (I’ll take Dream Theater over metalcore any day), but compared to “Awake” it’s still no masterpiece, so I’ll grade it accordingly. I dig this stuff quite a bit though, and though I know they’ll never write another “Surrounded” again they are at least back on track to put out quality material. That’s more than I bargained for.

PS: For a nice homage to their old albums, listen to the beautiful guitar soundscape on “The count of Tuscany”, it reminds me of “Trial of tears” from “Falling into infinity”. Pretty amazing stuff.

7,5

Information
Released: 2009
Label: Roadrunner Records
Website: www.dreamtheater.net
Band
James LaBrie (is this cosmic irony by the way?): vocals
John Myung: bass
John Petrucci: guitars, backing vocals
Mike Portnoy: drums, vocals
Jordan Rudess: keyboards, continuum
Jerry Goodman (guest): violin

Tracklist
01. A nightmare to remember
02. A rite of passage
03. Wither
04. The shattered fortress
05. The best of times
06. The count of Tuscany

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