I posted this over on my MySpace site today and wanted to put it here for those of you that don't go over there at all. Enjoy!
As many of you may or may not know I am huge fan of music! I've been listening since I was in diapers and followed the metal path, if you will! I started young as KISS fan (and am still a proud member of the KISS Army!) and stayed true to my roots since then.
Over the years I've discovered a lot of my music on my own. Dream Theater is one of those bands. I first ran across their Images and Words cd when I was still in high school, my senior year if I remember correctly. Their songs were dark and edgy and I thought their guitarist, John Petrucci, was a god! Dude could burn up some strings!
Over the years they keep punching out some killer music, and just recently we have been graced with another disc from them. I thought I'd share my review here!
This disc is a monster from the beginning! EPIC I tell you!
It's only 8 songs, but for any DT fans out there, its 1hour and 20mins fist pumping music! On average the songs are right around 7 minutes with the longest clocking in at almost 17 minutes.
I picked the Special Edition of the disc up a few days ago, and it was well worth the extra $4 for it. It was a dvd bonus of 1 1/2 hours of them recording the new cd, and it gives you a great insight as to how the album progressed and came together. I really started to appreciate this cd even more as I continued to watch them putting this together.
For me this is the best that I have heard from them, period! I was a huge fan of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, but just on the ride home I knew this would become my favorite real quick. And boy, was I right!
The albums first 5 minutes just hits you in the face with a killer instrumental to start off with before cueing in to the chorus of In The Presence of Enemies. The tempo keeps rockin right on in to Forsaken. Constant Motion, the 3rd track is very progressive, and has one of my favorite guitar solos in it, so far! Track 4 is a killer dark song! It's got this heavy riff right near the end that is just worthy of a head bang! Kids, I'm talking H.E.A.V.Y.! As Mike Portnoy put it, the heaviest John has ever played. It's sick!!
Repentence, song 5, and the disc's first 'softer' song. But it's not your 'Feeling Fine' kinda soft, it's a darker soft that get's ya thinkin a bit. Mike Portnoy penned this one and from the dvd you learn that it's a song that he's writing as a progression from several other albums where he's dealing with his demons in a 12 step type of deal. Very cool, and the lyrics are killer! At the end there is a star studded group that confess their sins, if you will. Chris Jherico, Cory Taylor, Dave Ellfison, Steve Via and Joe Satriani to name a few.
Prophets of War and the final track, In The Presence of Enemies, Part II, has a cool section in them where it's fans of Dream Theater chanting in the song. Kind of gives it a Queensryche, large crowd in the album, sound! Very cool.
The Ministry of Lost Souls and ITPOE II are the 2 longest tracks on the cd and keep you entertained from first to last chord! Ministry has a very cool story of a person being saved by another, but upon the rescue, the rescuer dies. As a result this person suffers with the grief of this death until, in the end, they finally 'take the hand' of their savior! Just an awesome tune!
In the end you are left feeling a sense of satisfaction that I personally havent had from a band in a very long time. I think Dream Theater just moved in to my Top 3 all time bands!
Give it a listen my friends! It's worth it!
1 comment:
You're right, it's very heavy. I didn't get a chance to listen to a song all the way through yesterday, but I'll add this to iTunes, and throw it on my iPod today.
Rawk!
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