Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings reviewed by HughesJB4 at Progfreak.com

The best album by Arch Enemy to date.
The most inspired sounding, the best song writing and just an album that packs a punch and is truly one of the better melodic death metal albums out there.
Also fantastic musicianship, with excellent lead guitar work from the dynamic guitar duo brothers, Michael and Chris Amott.

Extremely uninspiring record. I could honestly only listen to it a few times before deciding I never wanted to hear it again.

While never quite reaching the same level of commercial success as Master Of Puppets, Reign in Blood and Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?, this album is just as important in the development of the genre.
Fans of guitar driven metal look no further... Alex Skolnick played some of most stunning solos in thrash metal at the time on this album, a true virtuoso that made Kirk Hammett look like a beginner.
Great songs and excellent musicianship, although the production is not great... a fairly weak mix.

Utterly atrocious pop/rock record.

My favorite release of 2007.
While many prog metal bands like Dream Theater starting to sound a bit stagnant and uninspired, BtBaM went the whole hog in the opposite direction.
Exceptional dynamics, musicianship and song writing, while never skimping on emotion, make for an album so musically perfect to me, that I wouldn't change a thing about it.
The only weak point is the production.
The drums are too high in the mix and the guitars are slightly muddy, but fortunately this is not a huge problem.

An update on my old review.
While I feel this album is still very great, I've felt over time it hasn't held up as well as I first thought it would and isn't as inspiring as when I first heard it.
Nonetheless, as I said, still a high quality album indeed.

This album was a bit of a departure from previous Kayo Dot releases, in that it does away with the post metal aspect entirely.
The song writing is incredible and the album is packed full of emotion from start to finish, with many incredibly inspiring moments along the journey.
Full of complex instrumentation and being very much avant garde and experimental, yet always feeling natural, I found it an absolute joy to listen to.

Another step forward for the band after the very inconsistent The Silent Circus.
Great songwriting and musicianship, with some very technical moments.
Vocally, you can except clean vocals, deathcore/metalcore screams and death growls for a good variety.
Selkies:The Endless Obsession is no doubt the highlight track of the album, with an absolutely amazing instrumental section with incredibly emotional soloing from Paul Waggoner, climaxing in his amazingly smooth sweep picked section.
Some niggling problems are an inconsistent mix, with the guitars sounding almost a bit too chainsawish at times (too much high end) and a the drums being a little too forward in the mix.

This is the album that shows the virtuosity of Randy Rhoads in his prime. The album sounds great,  maybe a little raw for some people's tastes though. The inclusion of the appalling Black Sabbath cover songs unfortunately means the flow of the album isn't quite as good as it could be.

The heart stopper on this album has to be the the solo spot in after 4:56 in Suicide Solution, where Randy totally shreds it up, while still staying tasteful.

For the aspiring virtuoso guitarist, this album is, like Surfing With the Alien, a textbook example in virtuoso guitar and instrumental rock guitar.

It goes from rocking tunes like Erotic Nightmares and The Audience is Listening, which are also very quirky, to quieter songs like Sisters, which displays Vai's talent for rhythm guitar as well, to the absolute masterpiece and incredibly display of soulful playing, For the Love of God

A fairly inconsistent album, but a few gem tracks may just be the reason to add it to your collection of Pantera albums.

Undoubtedly, a classic of the genre. A must have for any Thrash metal fan.

A very good album, with the amazing classic track, In My Darkest Hour. The flow of the album is somewhat spoiled with the inclusion of the Anarch In The UK, which does not really fit in with the dark/cold nature of the rest of the album

After the somewhat average efforts of the Blaze Bayley period, Iron Maiden come back, in blistering form.  

This album manages to combine the best of the NWOBHM sound, classic metal, and yet,  simultaneously still give it a contemporary edge. A must have for any Maiden fan.

While not a bad album, for those that hoped for something as inspiring as the awesome Wages Of Sin (One of the best Melodic Death Metal albums ever IMO), well most likely be disappointed by this effort.

It starts off fairly well, but a track like We Will Rise, while at first very catchy, can be easy to get sick of (coming from me, and many other people that have heard this song), while the tracks Dead Eyes See No Future and Saints And Sinners are surely the best 2 tracks. Unfortunately a lot of the rest of the album doesn't do a lot to maintain listeners interest for repeated plays.

This was a very average effort by Arch Enemy. A few good catchy songs on here, but otherwise, it feels somewhat dull and uninspired.

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.

Perhaps the peak of thrash metal.
Incredibly well written songs, amazing guitar solos from Marty Friedman (who simply made Kirk Hammett looking like a beginner) overall amazing musicianship and despite it's aggressiveness and some of the most technical metal of it's era, it manages to balance it with a good dose of melodic playing too.

While not really ground breaking by any standard, it does a reasonable job of not simply following the instrumental guitar trend, and just sounding like another Passion And Warfare or Surfing With the Alien.