Artist Page: Dream Theater

The legendary show that allegedly caused Mike Portnoy to pass out after it was over. Great performances across the board on this one.

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.

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.

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.

A wonderful live album from their earlier years covering songs from Images and Words and their debut album.

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.

great story to a great cd lyrics and music fuse together to make something very different and amazing

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.

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 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

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.

I may not have heard the last 4 tracks often enough. It's a very good album.

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.

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!

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.

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.