I don’t think there will ever be a Dream Theater album that I will ever like more. This dark album features some of the most (personally) interesting and sometimes disturbing lyrics, fast-constant-rhythm and great work by Mike Portnoy. Having begun with listening to Dream Theater’s slower music (Hollow Years, Take Away My Pain… Peruvian), this was my immediate and permanent favourite-genre switch.
Songs from the past that I would place in the album would’ve been Strange Déjà vu, Degrees III & IV (Score versions) and Dying Soul.
If the pop of the 50s-80s is considered to be ‘easy-listening’ music, then this is definitely the counterpart. Like more instrumental Jazz, Dream Theater can be considered as acquired taste because the flow of music from each instrument is so complex and intricately interwoven that it takes a certain amount of internalising for a person to follow the patterns and appreciate their ‘concealed’ melodies.
The reason I like Dream Theater’s music is the same on which I base a lot of my liking of movies: it’s a finished product. None of their music is based just on the feeling at the moment or a simple tune. Lyrics almost always revolve around a story; the accuracy of the instrumentation betrays the varying depth of meaning, passion or pain, in the intricacy of the layering, amplitude and note.
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