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Reviews |
Dream Theater : Metropolis 2000: Scenes From ...2001, DVDStellar Prog Metal! Concept, Male-Clean-Vocals, Male-Melodic-Shouting, Male-Theatralic-Vocals The legendary show that allegedly caused Mike Portnoy to pass out after it was over. Great performances across the board on this one. Comment by ElectroVolta 6 months ago Dream Theater : Scenes from a Memory ...1999ElectroVolta is very familiar with this album. stellar Musicianship, excellent Production One of the most overrated prog albums ive ever come across, and believe me, I was one of you fanboys who believe this is the greatest thing since sliced bread as well. But, that was a few dozen intense listens ago. These days, after owning this album for a few years, its faults really expose themselves to me. I'll make my point quick.
Negatives: (you know the positives)
1. Labrie's whining vocals taint the entire album, he is not the godly vocalist he thinks he is, and overreaches his own abilities in in this album. (unlike Images and Words where he sings very well and knows his limitations.)
2. It is just too long! Cut out about 10 whole minutes of overly long intrumental jammage and you've got probably a much more condensed, and therefore better, album.
3. The lyrics are terrible, and the concept (after its novelty 'cool! a murder mystery!' storyline has faded) is almost laughable. "I felt so empty as I cried, like part of me had died."... eww. Please, did you have one of your kids write those lyrics on a napkin during school or something?
But even with these quite major problems, it is still excellent to masterful in almost all other aspects. It's really a shame, without Labrie and with some self-control this could have been the masterpiece album that people actually think it is.
Still VERY much worth a listen or two though, but don't expect to love it so much after the first few virgin encounters. Comment by ElectroVolta 6 months ago Dream Theater : Images and Words1992ElectroVolta is very familiar with this album. stellar Musicianship, good Production A milestone in progressive metal, and prog in general, for it's huge influence on the 90's prog revival. Barred by a dissapointing production (the snare sounds like it's filled with raw beans). Hugely influnced by Rush and the prog of the 70's, it deserves your repect if anything, but honestly, it should be heard at least once if you consider yourself a true progger. Dream Theater : Octavarium2005HughesJB4 is very familiar with this album. Good Symphonic Prog Metal!
While not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, I
feel it is Dream Theater's weakest effort. Only two tracks
really stand out as fantastic.
Comment by rushfan4 11 months ago Dream Theater : Live at the Marquee1993, Liverushfan4 has listened to this several times. Magnificent Prog Metal! Modern, Virtuosic, Guitar, Keyboard, Male-Melodic-Shouting magnificent Composition, Songwriting, Musicianship and Production A wonderful live album from their earlier years covering songs from Images and Words and their debut album. Comment by snapshoot 2 years ago Dream Theater : Scenes from a Memory ...1999snapshoot is very familiar with this album. Magnificent Epic Neo Prog Rock! Ambient, Artistic, Atmospheric, Avant-Garde, Concept, Creative, Dynamic, Eclectic, Emotional, Experimental, Heavy, Light, Melodic, Noisy, Orchestral, Original, Poetic, Polyphonic, Shred, Spacey, Symphonic, Technical, Virtuosic, Metal, Jazz, Electronic, Classical, Acoustic, Hard-Rock, Math, Power-Metal, Speed-Metal, Thrash-Metal, True-Metal, Gospel, New-Age, World, Aggressive, Cheerful, Cheesy, Dark, Depressive, Melancholic, Mellow, Drums, Keyboard, Percussion, Piano, Vocals A great progressive rock/metal concept album, easily Dream Theater's best work. The story is kind of stupid, but lyrically the album isn't bad. At times, it does drag a bit (it's over 75 minutes long), and sometimes the solos are a little tasteless, but overall it's a great album. Dream Theater : Systematic Chaos2007Time_Signature has listened to this several times. Stellar Heavy Prog Metal! Epic, Shred, Aggressive, Male-Clean-Vocals, Male-Melodic-Shouting Dream Theater are sharpening the metallic edge with "Systematic Chaos". I really like the hard edge on this album, which still retains the typical DT dynamics. Dream Theater : Systematic Chaos2007Carpetcrawler has listened to this a couple of times. Good album. Lyrics are a bit a shame; John M should write again...but the music is very good.
Highlights: Repentance, In The Presence Of Enemies
Lowlights: The Dark Eternal Night Dream Theater : Scenes from a Memory ...1999Dream theater definitely has the most powerful spot between the bands that took the progressive music to the 21st century. The band, that almost broke up after their 3rd album tour ("Awake"), and the constant pressure from the record company to produce hits, has made the musician pretty unstable. As a last minute move, they have turned to the company's management and demanded artistic freedom to their next project - and if this demand will not be fulfilled, they have threatend to end their career. The management have surrendered, and the band started the long & hard process of creating the album... Since then, "Scenes" became the most valuable album ever created by Dream, and most importantly - a perfect figure of Progressive Metal.
"Scenes From A Memory" is a complicated, ambitious rock-opera, 77 mins long. It was called as "Metropolis Part II". The first part, was in "Images & Words" - on track no. 5. But the ... -> show full review Dream Theater : Octavarium2005Prog rockers Dream Theater tallied 16 years as a band with the release of Octavarium, but in listening you're apt to suspect otherwise. As a collective they remain as tight as they were on 2003's obsessively dark Train of Thought (like all music-school outfits, they've exacted an all-for-one formula that doesn't allow a single player more than his share of swagger), but a post-hardcore edge — call it a leap into 2005 — has invaded their pledge of allegiance to theatrical heavy rock. Hear it on "I Walk Beside You" and "The Answer Lies Within," both of which, at under five minutes, play like charming haikus from a band known for its epic poetry, and also on the orchestra-backed 20-plus-minute final cut, which skips around from Pink Floyd to Rush to Yes influences, stopping off every so often at a place fans of My Chemical Romance might find familiar. As with all the band's discs, guitars loom large and both doom and redemption seem no further than the next twisted verse. What's changed is Dream Theater's commitment to carrying on their reputation as underground progressive rock's classicists, and it seems well-timed. Dream Theater : Images and Words1992OpenMind is very familiar with this album. My first taste of Dream Theater, and still stands out as the most solid of their albums. Starting with the perfectly paced build-up of the intro to "Pull Me Under", this contains some immaculate examples of musically interesting (prog, if you like) heavy rock. The instrumental interplay and restless changes of time and tempo are held together by a driving energy, and it never descends into wankiness. "Pull Me Under" and "Take the Time" hold the first half together in this way, the latter having some breathtaking rhythmic surprises. The longer pieces in the second half are no less imaginative, even if they might bore those without the patience for band instrumentals. "Learning To Live" is particularly colourful - a Spanish guitar sets off a rapid journey through several contrasting sections of soloing and group play, without ever getting bogged down.
Less interesting are the moments of plain big-hair stadium rock, such as "Another Day". "Surrounded" starts off in the same way, but contains just enough variety of mood and tempo to save it. The most successful "ballad" piece is keyboard player Kevin Moore's "Wait For Sleep", with a hypnotic, slinky piano theme. Dream Theater : Awake1994Mike is very familiar with this album. Magnificent Eclectic Technical Prog Metal! Avant-Garde, Creative, Experimental, Heavy, Melodic, Modern, Original, Symphonic, Virtuosic, Aggressive, Guitar, Keyboard, Vocals, Male-Melodic-Shouting This is my favorite DT album. Images & Words and Scenes are
equally perfect from an objective standpoint (if I had to
recommend one I wouldn't know which to choose) but this one is
best balanced IMO. Scenes has that Rudess influence which moved
DT a tiny bit closer to ELP, Images & Words is a tiny bit
less "metal" than Awake. On Awake you have it all ... and I
really like Kevin Moore's contribution, which adds an - if even
only on the subconscious level - experimental and slightly
avant-garde feeling, not only on Space-Dye Vest.
In a nutshell this album has all which makes Prog Metal the
wonderful genre which it is - if you're into this sort of
thing. Of course there are many reasons to dislike it ...
outstanding musicianship, crystal clear production, amazing
bandwidth of musical styles from soft/acoustic to heavy/thrash,
you name it.
The only problems I have with the album are a few passages
where LaBrie sings in registers which are on the fringes of
what he's capable of - it's a bit better than on I&W though
- and the track Lifting Shadows Off a Dream, which is perhaps
the earliest example of DT honoring U2 and is simply not a
particularly noteworthy song IMO.
But that still leaves us with over an hour of pure masterpiece. Dream Theater : Train of Thought2003Mike is very familiar with this album. Excellent Heavy Prog Thrash Metal! Creative, Eclectic, Epic, Experimental, Modern, Original, Shred, Symphonic, Technical, Virtuosic, Aggressive, Dark, Guitar, Keyboard, Vocals, Male-Melodic-Shouting stellar Musicianship and Production This is a good example of a band that made a decision (in this
case to make a heavier, more straightforward album, which
nonethless is still on a high musical level) which split their
fan base in two. Of course it didn't decrease the number of
their followers, because even the ones who were pissed of
eventually found some ice aspects in the music, and now that
Octavarium is about to be released, the wounds are healing
nicely.
Now what do I have to say about the music of TOT? It has a
very unique charm, but takes more time to settle. I'd say that
after 20 times listening to the album from beginning to end,
the patient listener will be rewarded, and the killer melodies
that strike you instantly on albums like SfaM will become
apparent on TOT as well. If you get bored along the way ... you
don't have to like this.
This is more metal than prog, but with many twists and the
usual stellar musicianship! Dream Theater : Scenes from a Memory ...1999Mike is very familiar with this album. Magnificent Technical Prog Metal! Artistic, Avant-Garde, Concept, Creative, Dynamic, Eclectic, Emotional, Epic, Experimental, Heavy, Melodic, Modern, Neo, Orchestral, Original, Poetic, Polyphonic, Shred, Symphonic, Virtuosic, Classical, Acoustic, Math, Thrash-Metal, Gospel, Aggressive, Cheerful, Drums, Guitar, Keyboard, Piano, Vocals, Male-Melodic-Shouting stellar Musicianship and Production, magnificent Composition and Songwriting This really is a masterpiece, a quintessential modern prog rock
concept album. There are many people out there who don't
consider Dream Theater to be prog at all. IMHO there are many
more who do, and I'm one of those open minded people who have
understood that there are many different kinds of prog
music.
Dream Theater - generally and on this album in particular -
focus on structure and virtuosity. The music is always very
controlled, refined and thoughtfully laid out. But with all
this technical perfection, this album features beautiful
melodies as well.
Production also is nearly perfect, I cannot understand
people who say otherwise. However, there might still be a
chance that you will not like the album (or Dream Theater) at
all: The vocals are not everybody's cup of tea, as are the
classical and avantgardistic (ZAPPA) influences and lengthy
solos. Dream Theater : Images and Words1992Mike is very familiar with this album. Magnificent Symphonic Technical Prog Metal! Classic, Creative, Dynamic, Eclectic, Epic, Experimental, Heavy, Melodic, Modern, Original, Virtuosic, Rock, Aggressive, Guitar, Keyboard, Vocals, Male-Melodic-Shouting This IS prog ... but not traditional Progressive Rock. It is a
form of Progressive Metal, but in the years to follow this
release, bands like Pain Of Salvation stretched the boundaries
of that genre much further. Yet this is an excellent release,
featuring a wide bandwidth from soft pop ballads (Another Day)
to ultra prog (Metropolis). I don't think that this type of
music qualifies as Speed or Power Metal, as others suggested,
because it's just so much different than other releases from
those genres. Your typical Speed Metal fan would not listen to
Dream Theater. Instead, he might consider it too progressive
...
But I have to admit that progressiveness in itself was
probably not what the band had in mind when they created Images
And Words. I think they really just wanted to create music that
is interesting for the listener, and fun to play for the band.
It may lack the seriousness of King Crimson, and the vocal
arrangements of Gentle Giant, there's not even a mellotron ...
but each track except the ballad has truly progressive
elements.
The one outstanding track on this record is Learning To
Live. It's really a good summary of all the other tracks, and
it's a track the band almost always includes in the setlist.
And of course Metropolis Pt.1, the first part to their
masterpiece Scenes From a Memory, which was initially "just" a
follow up song to Metropolis Pt.1 and then became a full
concept album. |
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