I have a soft spot for bands that go too far. Pretty sure it was Bill Maher who said something like, “If you never cross the line—how would you know where it is?”

In music, that idea should be Gospel.

The first modern “prog” band I ever heard, it was Dream Theater’s penchant for line-crossing and excess that drew me to them. I went nuts for just how over the top they could be. Everything from the 25-minute songs, the huge melodic bridges, the overblown concepts—I loved it all. I even loved how often they showed off in their tracks, going on these massive instrumental tangents that may or may not really have anything to do with the song’s primary melody. They did it because it sounded cool, and because, technically, they could.

They were virtuosos; they could anything they wanted. And I wanted them to.

That being said, there’s a time and place for hyperactivity. Excess can be fun, but emotional excess is better. Scenes from a Memory proves how powerful focus could be in an album. It isn’t Dream Theater’s fastest or most eclectic piece of work, but I’d say it’s definitely their best.

Trading in the “epic” formula for mood and melody, Scenes taught me that it’s possible to be proficient and grounded simultaneously. It’s a concept album, sure, but I’ve always been more concerned with the music than the story. It’s the thematic mantras that keep us moving; the narrative is just a canvas for emotion.

“What we have been is what we are”

If you’ve read anything I’ve written on Dream Theater in the past, you know how I feel about their recent output. What’s most disappointing, and genuinely upsetting, however, is how the band really seems to be completely without any sort of identity anymore. They’ve spiraled, into this nothing routine of just… making records, pumping out songs that feel more like compilations of riffs and solos they’d had in storage from older sessions. Except it’s all filtered this faux-metal veneer.

Say what you want about the band’s earlier stuff, but it wasn’t afraid to be pretty, and melodic (“Another Day,” “Space Dye Vest”). And with Scenes, they hit a climax (one they get close to in the 2^nd disc of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence), really creating some beautiful and graceful stuff. Sometimes it goes too far (“Home,” “The Dance of Eternity”), but mostly it’s focused, honest music, stuff the band really poured themselves into, body and soul. That can be said of exactly nothing they’ve produced in an easy 6 years. Closer to 8.

But, at the end of the day, I’m a Dream Theater fan. It’s just the way it is. And even if they happen to suck at the moment, maybe never even make another album worth praising, well, they’re still Dream Theater.

We’ll always have Scenes.
 
 
Listen/Watch:

Honorable Mention(s): Dream Theater – Images & Words; A Change of Seasons; Awake; Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

“The curve of the horizon, a masterpiece”

Do not adjust your screen. What you’re seeing is not a mirage. That’s right, this week I’m going with not 1, not 2, not even 3 but 4 albums as my #36. Ah yes, this should really piss people off.

Method to my madness? Well, my reasoning is actually pretty simple. When I think Radiohead, I don’t think of one record. To me, there’s no singular piece of their catalog that screams DEFINITIVE. Instead, when I think of Radiohead I think of Radiohead. Thom Yorke’s trademark whine, the atmosphere, how every album, no matter how incredibly different it is from the pieces before it, sounds remarkably, exactly and perfectly, like Radiohead. This quality is an absolute gift, the ability to be You no matter how many styles or symphonics you drape over your shoulders. Radiohead is Radiohead, and I love their poppy The Bends as much as their spacey Kid A, or their electronic-industrial In Rainbows, or even their go-to automatic, OK Computer.

So. As I type these words, one of the bands that introduced me to music as I see and hear it today, Dream Theater, broke up today. Not all of Dream Theater, actually, but their drummer-leader Mike Portnoy left, saying what I (and others, I’m sure) have been thinking for their past couple records, that instead of feeding artistic, inspired and creative flames with their work, lately it’s felt like the band has been merely “going through the motions.”

Now, despite my (many)complaints about their recent output (as well as others’ complaints about DT as a more or less symbol of the greater “prog” initiative), this is a band I loved, a band I still love. And so reading Portnoy’s release (which felt like a resolutely ambivalent diary entry) was sad, even though it was also inevitable… and made total sense… and was probably overdue.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying DT had to break up, but the writing was on the wall. Not every band can have the same zest for stylistic experimentation as The Beatles, but when it came to really, truly branching out, breaking out of “shells” or “comfort zones” or whatever other metaphors for security you can come up with, Dream Theater was only slightly short of artistically bankrupt. After 25 years, how could they not get bored?

On the backpedaling side of the scale, you could say the same thing about bands like Metallica, Sigur Ros… hell, even Genesis and Yes and a hundred other bands. These guys do what they do and they do it incredibly, God bless ‘em. But they rarely reinvent, as far as what can be expected of their next release. A Yes album may be a little synthier or a little more frenetic than the one before it, but it’s still a Yes album. The same for Genesis, from Trespass up to Selling England*—more or less, kinda.

*Stopping before Lamb Lies Down wasn’t an accident. It would be unfair to compare that to their debut (as in their 2^nd album). And of course I’m talking Gabriel-era Genesis. All bets are off when a band head hightails it.

“Beyond beyond, into unknown”

Only seldom do you find a band that’s willing to literally deconstruct its formula after every record only to rebuild with the next. It’s a incredible quality to have as an artist, one that sets bands like Radiohead among the elite, one that, I can’t help but think, would’ve saved Dream Theater—both from disbandment and the downward spiral of their pseudo-“metal” Systematic Chaos/Black Clouds era.

What else can we be? It’s this question that I think keeps bands from running in circles and turning stale. It’s this question that keeps them young.

What I’m trying to say is, every band may strive for reinvention but only few commit themselves to it as a lifestyle. Without bothering with song breakdowns or some buzzword-laden gush session, I’ll keep to the point. I love Radiohead for everything they are and everything they’re going to be, even if most of what they try from this point forward fails. A band like this is the sum of its discography, not one or a couple cherry-picked parts. And even if you come for the diversity, the contradiction and constant state of self-revolution, you stay for the mood and affect. That unexplainable something that we push under the rug in dissection and genre analysis. That thing that happens between track 1 and 12. That thing that affirms that sound is magic and, in our hearts, we love it because we love it, not because of what we write about it.
 
 
Listen/Watch:

“Sulk,” The Bends

“Paranoid Android,” OK Computer

“Everything in its Right Place,” Kid A

“15 Step,” In Rainbows

Honorable Mention: Gazpacho – Night / Tick Tock

While I’m at the whole “cheating” thing, I might as well pick more than one record for my honorable mention(s), too.

Gazpacho should be recognized. Recognized not only because the lead singer has a total Thom Yorke thing going on, but more because of what they have to say about the value of atmosphere. A part of the art/post-rock progressive rock subgenre (how long before we start getting subgenres of subgenres?), in each of these records, mantra is the watchword. More about mood than melody, each are put together from one central theme, then built over and on top of that theme in so many delicate layers and textures of string, percussion and piano that what we’re left with are these sprawling and almost dreamlike soundscapes. The albums take their time, in painting the scenery, adjusting the light and sculpting environments that we can really get lost in. What Gazpacho does is truly powerful. They’re a band with patience and a true, committed vision. Even though breaking albums like these into singles is really kind of missing the point, listen to “Chequered Light Buildings” from Night and “Desert Flight” from Tick Tock to get an idea of what they’re about.

Thick as Brick earns a coveted place on the Mellotron Sounds 50 Albums List not because it’s so important musically (even though it is) or because I love it (even though I do), but more because of what it represents.

A near-45 minute epic, all one singular track, the arrangement transitions often, from acoustic elements to electric, organs to flutes, guitars to xylophones, putting to tape one of the most committed concept albums ever recorded—one, we’d only find out later, is actually a satire.

Straight from the horse’s mouth (the horse is Tull frontman Ian Anderson):

“Thick as a Brick was written as a spoof, as a send-up of a concept album. The record preceding it, Aqualung, had been viewed by some critics as a concept album, which I disagreed with…. So I said, “OK, let’s give them the mother of all concept albums.” An integral part of that was to pretend the lyrics had been written by an eight-year-old boy, a preposterous, sort of precocious child who came up with these convoluted and vague-sounding lyrics all set to a continuous flow of music. It was a lot of fun to do. I wasn’t trying to deceive people. I just thought everybody would get the gag.”

So that explains the lyrics*. But Thick as a Brick is a musical spoof the same way Edgar Wright’s movies (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim) are cinematic ones—which is to say, it really isn’t.

*Some lyrics:

“So! Where the hell was Biggles when you needed him last Saturday?
And where were all the sportsmen who always pulled you through?
They’re all resting down in Cornwall –
writing up their memoirs for a paperback edition
of the Boy Scout Manual”

Most people would be lying if, through all of the movements, the flute-work and drawn-out instrumentals, they told you this album never feels bombastic. I’ll be the first to admit, at times the bridges get a bit long and the passages a bit redundant. But where a lot of satires set out to strictly mock, Thick as Brick—the same as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz or Scott Pilgrim—is sort of co-conscious, allowing itself the space to get lost in the form that it’s supposedly making fun of. This kind of send-up isn’t biting or elitist. It’s a hat-tip, with the satirist in full appreciation of what gives its subject power in the first place.

Edgar Wright doesn’t hate zombie movies or action movies or comics/video games, he loves them. It’s just that he’s smart enough to acknowledge, and play off of, their clichés. That’s what makes his films worth watching and not all snickers and nudges. I’d bet there’s a part of Ian Anderson that feels the same away about prog, even if he does resent the classification.

I’ve always seen directors like Edgar Wright as sort of kids in candy stores. With every topic he centers his films around, with every frame, you can see a grown-up giddiness peaking through the seams, thrilled just to be there, a part of the magic he’s been so in awe of since he was a kid. And I truly believe that capturing and contributing to that magic is why he, and in turn, Jethro Tull, do what they do. The genre doesn’t matter; these guys are magicians, pushing the boundaries of their respective mediums to advance the affect of the greater “music/film experience.” And even if they’re doing it with a smirk, each are creating/have created media worth paying attention to. Because it’s genuinely passionate.

You can’t fake art. Force it and people will notice, even hate you for it. So in the end Thick as a Brick really does do serious work, in contributing to the “progressive rock” concept catalog and in being flat-out volatile. Anderson’s voice is sweet when it wants to be, and the band can be pretty when it feels like it, but when that first transition comes, you realize that you’ve just been strapped in for a ride you weren’t anticipating. Then, somehow, it’s 45 minutes later and you’re right back where you started and it all made perfect sense.

No matter what the inspiration, it’s impossible not to respect a piece that goes this far, takes this many chances. It’s this ownership over the form that fascinates me about musicians and directors, the claiming of a piece of “theirs,” taking a leap that guarantees that at a project’s end one person (or small group of people) will take full credit for success the same as they will blame for failure. With that in mind, it seems ridiculous for showmen like Jethro Tull to decide on a “satire” and not lace it with heart and honest ambition. If Thick as a Brick is really joke, I think maybe Anderson and the guys got distracted in the set-up. The punchline, then, would have to be the realization that they’d actually made a beautiful, complex and memorable record.

It isn’t funny ha-ha but, hey—they’re laughing.
 
 
Listen/Watch (if only to see crazy Ian Anderson in action):

“Thick as a Brick” (live, abridged), Part I

Honorable Mention: Ayreon – The Human Equation

Speaking of ambition, Ayreon’s The Human Equation has got to be one of the most unique albums I’ve ever heard. To this day, I couldn’t honestly tell you how much I “love” the piece, but as a longer, crazier, more varied and more obsessively committed example of what a contemporary concept album can be, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t get under my skin.

Over the top, 2 discs and not in any way for everyone, The Human Equation is really more a musical than a “concept.” It’s about a man who’s slipped into a coma and is digging through his past in order to find a little peace. But here’s the kicker: all of the emotions he’s sifting through are performed by guest musicians—Me is played by Dream Theater’s James Labrie, metal frontmen (Devin Townsend, Mikael Akerfeldt) sing Fear and Rage, a woman sings Love, there’s even an opera singer playing the part of Pride.

And so there’s a real “prog community” element to it. I’ve joked before that all of these prog rock bands, it’s almost like they all live in the same neighborhood, see each other around town, make small talk and invite one another every now and then to collaborate. In the sphere of my current playlist, you can follow a pretty coherent web of exploration, what led to what and why: Dream Theater’s first keyboardist started bands called Chroma Key and OSI, the latter of which Porcupine Tree’s dummer performed with in one album. Porcupine Tree creator, Steven Wilson, has a couple other bands: No-Man and Blackfield. Dream Theater’s drummer performs in Neal Morse’s work, and Morse used to lead Spock’s Beard. Spock’s Beard’s drummer recently toured with Frost*. Morse and Portnoy also play together in Transatlantic, a band featuring the guitarist from the Flower Kings and the bassist from Marillion. Etc., etc.,….

To be sure, The Human Equation has it’s share of cheese and it sometimes doesn’t work. But it usually does, and it gets major points for originality. It’s an album almost impossible to describe. It’s insane. You just have to hear it.

I guess it’s like that with everything in life.

But musically, there’s always a turning point—a “gateway band” that opens your eyes to the fact that radio isn’t the last word in sound discovery at all, but actually the first, and a pretty hollow one. Cue Liquid Tension Experiment.

I don’t think I ever realized just what LTE meant to me until I was sitting with my friend Sadiq out by the pool one night, smoking hookah, drinking beer and looking out at the blackness fallen over the lake in my backyard. It was muggy and our feet were blue and slowly pruning underwater; ripples; the faint scent of chlorine and summer. Across the lake we watched cars go by in blurs of metal and headlights through a break in the trees, the glow from a lighted hotel sign, the moon’s reflection off the water. And we talked about nothing in particular as music played softly in the background.

When Liquid Tension’s “Universal Mind” came up on the stereo’s shuffle, I’d almost forgotten it was on there. This is not a band I listen to often, and even when I first discovered it, it wasn’t exactly go-to. You’ve got to understand, LTE is insane*. It’s fast “progressive” non-accessible instrumental freakout, put together by a group of guys who love to push just how over-the-top their talents can take them.

*The band is a “side project” of Dream Theater, with every member from DT except the bassist (who’s replaced by Tony Levin from King Crimson/Peter Gabriel) and the frontman.

When I first got into progressive rock, I wanted freakout because of how polar opposite it was from what I was used to. These prog musicians, they knew and mastered their craft. They weren’t just playing basic chords like mainstream artists do—these guys were showmen. I craved the culture-shock. Over time tastes would change and meet somewhere closer to the middle, but in the beginning bands like Dream Theater were king, early Rush, Yes. So it was only natural that LTE would also be in that group.

Liquid Tension’s life in my everyday spin cycle was pretty short-lived but ridiculously dense, giving it an extremely specific time period to represent in my musical yearbook: the summer of 2006. That summer, I listened to Liquid Tension like crazy—in the car, at work, on my laptop. None of my friends had “real” jobs yet or “real” problems. We played Wiffle ball almost every night and chased it with matches of Age of Empires on our computers.  Almost every night. We had girlfriends and were young enough to think they’d be around forever. We looked forward to “Festa Italian,” a yearly celebration across the lake at the Italian-American Club that we’d walk to from my house to buy sausage and peppers and pizza and zeppolis, to laugh at the broken down carnival rides and listen to the Frank Saffi Band play all the New York/Italian songs you’d expect them to play.

Only 4 years ago, those days are so close I can almost touch them if I stretch. But listening to the showy virtuoso freakout that is Liquid Tension Experiment, it’s funny, I’m both brought into that time and pushed out of it, taken back to realize just how long 4 years can be when you’re 19, or 21, and having birthdays, and going to college, and growing up, and for the first time in your life earning the right to look back, to sit quietly out by the pool just to think.

The summer months of 2006 stand as the very last days of a childhood I thought would last as long I cared to keep it—back when I thought you could control those things. After it, all of a sudden life happened and we all were different, still us but not “kids” anymore and not “adults.” We were “us,” a concept that was simple and complicated at the same time, one that for the first time I think we realized would always be in flux.

For me, Liquid Tension Experiment is the gateway band; it’s the break in the trees that holds festivals and Ferris wheels and innocence on one side, and everything else on the other. It’s the decision to move forward, away from what you know and into something else. And so it has a bittersweet reverb about it.

Out by the pool, I didn’t even have to close my eyes. “Universal Mind” sped out of the stereo and, presented in the hookah smoke, I saw that summer, all of it, finished with soft edges and starlight casted through the patio screen. And it’s funny–think about any summer from your own childhood; aren’t they kind of all like that?
 
 
Listen/Watch:

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THIS WEEK’S REVIEWS HERE

Doesn’t matter what I say about these guys. I could tell you that they’re the worst band on the planet. I could say their music is laughable. But by God if they’re not manipulating the hell out of me with this release-a-new-grain-of-teaser-information-every-other-day marketing scheme. Say what you want about them, but bottom line: they’ve got me saying something.

Their latest grain is the track list for the cover album that will come included in the Special Edition of June 23rd’s Black Clouds and Silver Linings.

Honestly, even in A Change of Seasons, I’ve never been blown away by their covers. They’re cool, but more of a novelty for the fans than something truly new or exciting. They are doing a suit from QUEEN’s Sheer Heart Attack album, though, and I have to say, I did get a little giddy when I read that. I won’t lie to you, a flutter of giddiness did pepper through these loins. The covers might not be earth shattering, but I’d say they’ll definitely be contributing to the “Silver” around all those nasty, murky, ominous “Black Clouds.”

Leading up to Black Clouds‘ big day, each cover will be released individually–through iTunes–each with its own art to pop up all tiny and shadowed in your iPod’s two-incher. “Stargazer,” from RAINBOW’S 1976 Rainbow Rising, is the first single; it’s available now, and its art, dare I say, reminds me of a videogame I used to play back in the day on my family’s DOS system, called Scorched Earth. In the summers I’d hop onto the computer with my friends and turn into a ball of colored pixels with a line sticking out of it (AKA: a tank), and I’d use geography and physics (AKA: barrel angle and power) to shoot other tiny balls of pixels on mountainsides or in wide, rocky fields with Nukes and MIRVs and leapfrog bombs. We used to call it “Tank Battle.“

I’d like to think of “Stargazer’s” cover art as DREAM THEATER’s subtle homage to Tank Battle and a simpler time. …Yeah, I think I’m going to stick with that.

The songs and their covers will be releasing periodically, but this will be the last time I write about DREAM THEATER probably until Black Clouds is out. They’ve had their way with me more than enough times this past month or so.

01. Stargazer – RAINBOW
02. Tenement Funster/Flick of the Wrist/Lily of the Valley – QUEEN
03. Odyssey – DIXIE DREGS
04. Take Your Fingers From My Hair – ZEBRA
05. Larks’ Tongues In Aspic (Part II) – KING CRIMSON
06. To Tame A Land – IRON MAIDEN

DREAM THEATER news keeps on rolling in with the release of The Dream Theater Keyboard Experience: Featuring Jordan Rudess. Even though it initially came out in March, signed copies are available now to the first 50 customers who place an order through Rudess’ homepage – here.

Wielding his Halo Brute Shot keytar like a sword slid out of its sheath on the book’s front cover, Rudess is intense. His technical skills have earned him one of the biggest names in prog, and, no matter how much I may want to skip posting yet another DT news item up here, and no matter what I may think of the band’s current direction or focus, the man deserves his due. And plus, if you play piano, this kind of thing is probably right up your alley. The book is described as:

“Not just a songbook, but a total experience! Note-for-note keyboard transcriptions of nine keyboard-intense DREAM THEATER songs from 1992 -2007, plus amazing full-color concert and behind-the-’boards photos, and a personal [question-and-answer] conversation with Jordan Rudess in which he reveals details of his playing style and the experience of jamming and writing with rock virtuoso bandmates DREAM THEATER. What’s more, Rudess wrote special ‘exercise’ pieces to precede each song, each focusing on a challenging playing technique unique to the corresponding DREAM THEATER songs that follows. A must-own collectible for all fans! 212 pages.”

Songs Featured:
* “Blind Faith” (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence)
* “Home” (Metropolis, Pt 2: Scenes from a Memory)
* “Honor Thy Father” (Train of Thought)
* “In the Presence of Enemies Pt. 1” (Systematic Chaos)
* “In the Presence of Enemies Pt. 2” (Systematic Chaos)
* “Lines in the Sand” (Falling into Infinity)
* “Octavarium” (Octavarium)
* “Space-Dye Vest” (Awake)
* “Take the Time” (Images and Words)
* “The Ministry of Lost Souls: (Systematic Chaos)

Straight from the horse’s mouth (Mike Portnoy’s the horse) about DT’s upcoming release: “Imagine a DREAM THEATER album with ‘A Change Of Seasons’, ‘Octavarium’, ‘Learning To Live’, ‘Pull Me Under’ and ‘The Glass Prison’… all on one album… COULD YOU HANDLE IT?? Excited? I sure am!!!!”

So there you have it. Nothing to worry about. Portnoy says that DT’s new album, Black Clouds and Silver Linings (June 23) is not only going to be good, but a collection of all your favorites. How intense.

I want to like these guys (see my April 2nd ProgBeat, “Hopefully More Silver…”). But they’re seriously making it hard. After Score–their amazing 20th Anniversary concert DVD in ‘06 that sampled their most melodic and anti-”metal” offerings–it’s like they went in a different direction. Remembering back to Score–the way they chose songs like the soft and unassuming black sheep “Vacant” from the otherwise all in-your-face Train of Thought album for the setlist–it’s feels like a farewell show to a bulk of their original fans, the ones who loved them for the finesse they mixed with their signature crazy musicianship. It’s as though in that show DT were acknowledging what it was about them that always proved that they weren‘t a “Progressive Metal” band, and played those tracks for one last time. Score feels like a final hoorah to me, some sort of last wave goodbye where only one of the parties knows that when they leave, they’re leaving forever.

After it, they signed up with Roadrunner Records and tried to make it big with Systematic Chaos, and now their 10th studio release Black Clouds and Silver Linings. But it’s not the fact that these guys are trying to make it a bit more into the mainstream that kills me; it’s not that Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds are full of tracks called “The Count of Tuscany” or “The Dark Eternal Knight;” it’s not even that they actually are slowly becoming the modern-day face of prog with this new stuff. It’s the fact that their new material is just so uninspired, so undisciplined, and even just plain boring.

The music video for their first Black Clouds single, “The Rite of Passage,” says it all. The speeding guitar solo without a hint of melody, the red monks with 300-esque bad guy masks, the faux-mood, and wasted LaBrie vocals, and can’t-take-it-seriously content, and…oh, forget it. This is what I was afraid of. DREAM THEATER isn’t what they were in the ’90s. They’re not trying anything new. They’re stuck in a rut of self-productions, with stellar individual musicians but no lyrical or compositional leaders. And if “Rite of Passage” is any indication, Black Clouds probably should be titled Systematic Chaos II.

And now I’m disheartened. It’s hard to watch a band I once loved dying like this.

Then in 2005 Octavarium came. I read all about it, listened to the audio teasers they posted online, got pumped about the 25-minute epic that closed out the album and imagined the chills I’d feel on hearing LaBrie scream that final “Trapped inside this Oc-ta-var-i-uuummm!” in context with the rest of the song. Long story short, I did get some chills–it’s hard not to with LaBrie’s range–and there were parts of the album that really did payoff. “Root of All Evil” was a great, rocking segue between this and Train of Thought; “These Walls” was a fun little song with a great keyboard line; “Octavarium” had its moments; and “Sacrificed Sons” was a grower, one that went from the trying-to-be-topical cheesiness of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence’s “The Great Debate” to actually pretty powerful the more times you heard it. It wasn’t all a downer, but something was missing. The album felt incredibly conscious of itself, with uninspired “soft” songs placed in the mix to either make the CD “balanced” or appeal to wider audiences. Either way, it just wasn’t organic.

Then, after voicing their discontent with Atlantic, their then-record label, for not making them famous enough, DREAM THEATER knew it was time to get serious. They joined Roadrunner Records (the company behind SLIPKNOT, OPETH, MEGADEATH, NICKELBACK…), grew mustaches and beards and dyed their hair black–then made Systematic Chaos, their “metal” album. The problem with this piece is that DREAM THEATER simply isn’t a metal band. As much as I love LaBrie, he doesn’t have the voice for it. As much as I love Rudess, he doesn’t have the patience to just sit in the background making layers. And as much as I love Petrucci, I think he needs a structure to keep him somewhat boxed in, to allow him his complex and interesting riffs but cut him off before he goes into another solo.

Systematic Chaos was a bust. They did metal better in Train of Thought and hard/soft juxtapositions better in Six Degrees. It wasn’t that the record was devoid of all intrigue, only that it set out with the wrong goals. Prog musicians should stop trying to be accepted by the mainstream; it’s never going to happen, not really. They should only focus on making something new, testing their limits–isn’t that why they got into the business in the first place?

A song like “The Dark Eternal Knight” is a perfect example of them floundering. This is a “dark” song, a “metal” song, it’s got heavy distortion and anger in excess–all the elements are there for those Headbangers Ball fans. But it’s also nearly 9 minutes long, with solos one after the other that scream, “This is Prog/Metal! Can’t you tell? Watch how fast I can play…”

It’s just the thing DEVIN TOWNSEND satirized in his Ziltoid the Omniscient album, when Ziltoid proclaims himself “The greatest guitar player that has ever lived!” then goes into a wild and frantic, high-octane solo, telling us to “Check this out,” then confidently spouting, “Simple,” as if he were unbuckling his belt after a great meal.

But, DREAM THEATER did get into Rock Band and Guitar Hero. That must mean they’re doing something right. …Right?

So now it’s six years after Train of Thought, after they’ve put out their compilation album (complete with radio edits and “singles”)–Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit (…& 21 Other Cool Songs)–and they’re releasing their newest: Black Clouds and Silver Linings, on June 23. And I’m honestly trying to be optimistic.

I want to like DREAM THEATER again. I respect the hell out of these guys. When they’re on, they’re really on, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s just a matter of them deciding to spread their artistic wings again rather than their commercial ones. I think one of the worst things a group can do is decide who they are; and I’ve heard Portnoy tell interviewers on multiple occasions that DT is his “metal band.”

Is Images and Words metal? Is Scenes from a Memory? Is the second disc of Six Degrees?

Maybe I just don’t see it.

Along with their standard release of the album, they’ll also be offering a 3-Disc Special edition, including a full cut of instrumental mixes and a CD of six cover songs. They’ll also be shooting a video for their single, “A Rite of Passage,” in late March.

I like instrumental mixes. I just got FROST’s* latest record, Experiments in Mass Appeal, in Special Edition, and the instrumental mixes are surprisingly illuminating. It’s like a whole new album. But I still can’t shake the feeling that this is just another ploy–just like the concert CDs and DVDs they release after every tour, and their half-assed Greatest Hits release. And whether its strobe lights, black & white, whatever, music videos are lame, and DREAM THEATER music videos are lamer

But…I’m trying to stay optimistic.

DREAM THEATER made (probably)their best record when it was do or die. It basically came down to them either making an album that the public and the record company could believe in, or them getting new jobs. Scenes from a Memory is what DREAM THEATER should be. They should have restraint and build onto melodies; they should create a mood, not force one, not fall into one determined by the the amount of hair on their face or holes in their jeans.

I don’t think anyone can say that DREAM THEATER takes themselves too seriously (have you seen Rudess’s Halo Brute Shot Keytar, or heard the “Jingle Bells” interlude in “Octavarium”?), but I just don’t want them to turn into a spectacle. Sure, it’s about the show, and about technicle achievements and about the “wow” factor. But it’s also about quality music, plain and simple.

In this new release, I just want to be surprised. That’s all I ask. And maybe this new cover art, which is strangely remniscent of ones past (think Awake), is some kind of hint at a return to form? I really hope so.

I want to believe in these guys again. They have absolutely nothing to prove–except that they can keep moving forward.

Track List:
1. A Nightmare to Remember
2. A Rite of Passage
3. Wither
4. The Shattered Fortress
5. The Best of Times
6. The Count of Tuscany