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Oleg Sobolev Reviews : Dream Theater

****these reviews courtesy of guest reviewer Oleg Sobolev (http://www.geocities.com/noel_kjuss/index.htm) ****

Dream Theater was one of the first bands of the so-called "3rd wave or progressive rock" with its weird mixing of traditional prog and heavy metal. Apart from the other bands in the same wave of prog who were mixing (and still mixing!) pop music with prog (The Flower Kings or Spock's Beard) or Radiohead-like stuff with prog (Porcupine Tree), DT never seem to get boring - they introduce new things every time. Mixing such weird things as Metallica-like riffs, Rush progressive atmosphere, Yes epic paranoia. They became quite successful between the masses of ordinary people and that's the reason why many "true" progheads hate them with a passion. The core of the band are three people: bassist John Myung, guitarist John Petrucci and drummer Mike Portnoy (whose last name can be translated as "tailor" in Russian). They all are great musicians but average songwriters. Vocalists and keyboardists had been changing during their career, so I will tell you more about them in my reviews. When Dream And Day Unite was the first Dream Theater album. It features vocalist Charlie Dominici and keyboardist Kevin Moore. Kevin Moore is a superb player, but his songwriting skills are quite limiting, while Charlie has really annoying voice like Geddy Lee or David Surkamp (that's why most of people thinks it is DT worst album), but I quite like him. Just listen to "Light Fuse And Get Away" or "Only A Matter Of Time" - he shines on those songs! But his voice is often boring and annoying on other tracks. Plus, some of the lyrics are really awful (lyrics has always been a big problem to Dream Theater, by the way) so it's no surprise that the best track on here is just a twisted and very complicated Rush-like heavy prog jam - "Ytse Jam". It's overlong, but Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci show everything they can. "The Ones Who Help To Set The Sun" features even more powerful and aggressive jamming, but vocal parts of that song are really bad, mostly down to Charlie.

Most of the songs overall are good, some great (above mentioned "Ytse Jam", cool Metallica clone "A Fortune In Lies" and "Only A Matter Of Time" - very Rush-like powerful six minute prog gem). The only real letdown is "Status Seeker" - just a silly pop song "coloured" in hard chords and a very cheesy chorus. Another outstanding song is a nine minute epic "The Killing Hand", but it's outstanding just because of its length and extremely beautiful acoustic guitar intro. As you might understand, Charlie was really one who did not fit in the band, so he left shortly after release of this album, being replaced by singer James LaBrie.

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Even with adding James LaBrie on lead vocals, Dream Theater didn't move with their music. If the guys had recorded 'When Dream And Day Unite' with James, you'd probably never notice any difference between 'Images And Words' and Dream Theaters debut. So why such low rating, eh? Well, first of all, all three ballads on this album are really worth your toilet, and nothing more. They are all terrible. "Another Day" is an ordinary cheesy metal ballad with a saxophone (!!!) solo in the middle. "Surrounded" is boring synth noodling for five and a half minutes with lyrics as cheesy as possible. Finally, "Wait For Sleep" is a three minute piano ballad that doesn't make any sense. Plus we get the eight minute hair-metal, hard-pop garbage of "Pull Me Under". With these, you've got the album nobody wants to listen to! So, what saves the album? Other songs, of course! "Take The Time" is a powerful, eight minute real prog epic with killer keyboard and guitar solos in the middle. A catchy chorus is here too (they always sing those "taaaaaake theeeee tiiiiiime" lines to the audience in their live gigs). "Metropolis, Part 1" is a first part of pretentious story, later continued. But for all its nine minute length, it never gets boring. An amazing intro with gorgeous synths, great vocal melodies and a complex jam in the middle. You can't even tell exactly where the melodies are. It's just so exciting! And, finally, the 11-minute long "Learning To Live" is just genius. Great interesting lyrics about a man suffering from AIDS and learning a new way of life. An amazing melody and another catchy jam in the middle acoustic section. There is also "Under A Glass Moon" - still quite nice but with lyrics as dorky as possible.

So what we have overall? One of my favourite Dream Theater songs ("Metropolis, Part 1" and "Learning To Live"), four shitty songs... Is this album worth your money? Uh, well....no and yes at the same time. Decide for yourself, either buy it or not.

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Readers Comments Matt Sparkplug@blueyonder.co.uk Images and words is a good Dream Theater album, maybe not the best one but it deserves at least an 8. Wait For Sleep is not a ballad that doesn't make sense, it's a lead-in to Learning to Live. I do totally agree on the '10' that you gave SFAM though...it's their best work. Disappear is also a good song, although it may start off a little slow and dreamy, it then goes into a more emotional ending. Also Portnoy is the best drummer in the world. I.A bisonte83@yahoo.it IMAGES AND WORDS is perfect... and Wait for sleep is beautiful. like matt says it's a lead in. the lyrics of under a glass moon are poetic and i find them among the best lyrics of DT. Randy melodictouch82@hotmail.com I know Opinions are like assholes but I have to say.....I love all of Dream Theater and naturally everyone will have favorites....but as mentioned earlier in this post, it isn't a bad song because you don't like it. Bombay Vindaloo for instance is listed as one of the best moments for Petrucci....and it was a new song (it first of all was an Improv Jam if you can read so it wasn't new at all, it ws spontateous and on top of it, yes, great soloing but not compared to the solo compositions that he has shown on Images or even of lately on Six Degrees......face it, you aren't a critic and even if you were, you can't say any of their music is bad, whether you like it or not, they are some of the best at their individual respective instruments and aren't going anywhere. As mentioned earlier, Portnoy is soon to be taking the torch from Neil Peart as the best there is in the world and that also can be said of the rest of the guys taking the torch from the best in the world at thei! r respective instruments. Nothing agbout DT is pretentious and anyone who would hate them in the prog community are obviously posers because for their accomplishments and notoriety (not due to MTV or any commercialism except the Pull Me Under song played for a lil while when I was 15 years old back in 92), they get nothing but respect for breaking the wall wide open for other musicians like myself that don't have to fear of all paths leading to dead ends just because this music is in denial of a vast majority.....people are more aware because of them and they have pioneered for people like myself to have a chance sharing my talents and passions with others ...........that is what music is all about, gimme money if you want but I just want to play in front of many people to see them enjoy what I have to give them

A 47-minute live "EP" which shows that Dream Theater wasn't a great live band circa 1992 - just ordinary metal band, nothing original on stage in particular. Band plays great, maybe they lose energy sometimes, but song selection is really bad. Not that it just sucks or anything - it's just bad. I've got no idea who needs both "Surrounded" and "Pull Me Under" on one live EP, or a performance of "Metropolis" which is almost identical to the studio version (but it good anyway). Two When Dream And Day Unite songs with James on vocals still rule, but they've got nothing new or something outstanding, except for "The Killing Hand" intro called "Another Hand". The only new song is a long and powerful jam called "Bombay Vindaloo". It is one of the best moments in John Petrucci entire career as the guitarist. His amazing solos are absolutely best moment on this track. He plays everything from traditional metal to solos what are close to Al Di Meola's ones. In one of that solos he even plays moment that sounds exactly like traditional Russian song "Moroz".I wonder if John really knows some Russian songs and plays them from time to time.

Anyway, I don't even advise you to buy this one - you can only waste your money for 47 minutes of some strange live recordings. Nothing special in particular.

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A great album! After a big disappointment of Images And Words, guys prepared every single note of the new material and just recorded new album. So there, Awake is powerful, 76-minute heavy prog metal paradise - epics, powerful jams, touch-full ballads, great hard-rockin' stompers and some portions of amazing and well-written pop! The drum intro of "6:00" leads us into hard guitar-dominated pop-rocker with catchy chorus and funny samples here and there. "Caught In A Web" is one of the earliest songs about Internet. It also shows some kind of future Dream Theater - much more "alternative" in some way. Still great, though, with James screaming as burned. "Innocence Faded" is poppy, but still good and has a dorky little cheesy chorus everyone must like. But not me, sorry. And then comes a three song 21-minute suite "A Mind Beside Itself". "Erotomania", "Voices" and "The Silent Man". "Erotomania" is almost a seven minute instrumental reminds me of Metallica classic instrumental works like "To Live Is To Die" - bass rules! A ten minute epic "Voices" has a memorable classy chorus and haunting jam. And, finally, "The Silent Man" is an acoustic pop song with John Petrucci plays a masterful, brilliant acoustic solo. "The Mirror" begins with very heavy intro (titled "Puppies On Acid" at Once In A Live Time) and turns into hard-rocking stomper with Kevin Moore shines with his keyboards. "Lie" is kinda slow, but good overall. "Lifting Shadows Off A Dream" is the worst song on the album - overlong and not very good ballad, but lyrics are great.

Two last songs are the best on here. "Scarred" is an eleven minute paradise of hard rock, balladeering, crazy guitar solos and amazing melodies. Oh, and "Space-Dye Vest"... Kevin Moore left shortly after release of the album, and guys probably knew it, so they let Kevin wrote a solo number on the album - and he did it. "Space-Dye Vest" is a cool, spooky and dark piano-driven ballad with touch-full and hopeless James vocals. Oh, how I love the song! Awake is worthy to get because of this song!

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Everybody says that this is an EP, but I seriously doubt it. Judge for yourself - this one lasts for friggin' 57 minutes! If this one really is EP, so it can be the longest EP of all time. But this not the most interesting thing about the record - this one was the debut of new Dream Theater keyboardist - Derek Sherinian. It consists of two parts. The first part is a long, 23-minute epic called "A Change Of Seasons". It was written in 1991 and since that time was performed on live gigs. You can find early version of the epic somewhere on Audiogalaxy. On this CD, epic divided into seven parts - each describes one period of life, from "The Crimson Sunrise" (a born of new life) to "The Crimson Sunset" (death). The song begins with cool acoustic guitar intro of "The Crimson Sunrise", which goes into small but cool jam. But the first part lasts not very long and "Innocence" begins. It is pretty good hard-rock song with catchy chorus and vocal melody. Small jam leads us right to "Carpe Diem" - strange, but very interesting ballad. It is not in the way of Kevin Moore’s ballads - it’s just a cold thoughtful ballad with emotional feeling from James. "The Darkest Of Winters" is another small jam-not very memorable, but very hard. The following "Another World" may be the best part of the song - great, anthemic hard-rock driving monster in the best traditions of Awake. Angry lyrics and angry singing is the shape of the song. Finally, after long unmemorable jam called "The Inevitable Summer" we come to "The Crimson Sunset" - to the end of life. But the same guitar lines that opened the whole song bring us to the beginning. So, this is the song that you can hear over and over and over again.

The second part is so-called "Uncovered" - collection of different covers performed live. Elton John's "Funeral For A Friend"/"Love Lies Bleeding" is a strange moody requiem turns right into some cool rocker. I haven't heard the original version, but this one is great. "Perfect Strangers" is a Deep Purple cover - as great as original. Medley of Led Zeppelin covers is quite good, too, but "Achilles' Last Stand" is not the song I like. Finally, so-called "Big Medley" features Pink Floyd, Kansas, Queen, Journey (!), Dixie Dregs and Genesis covers - all performed great. At all, both parts of this "EP" is worthy your attention.

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Everyone seems to hate this one. I dunno - for me, album is one of the best Dream Theater ever recorded. There's no very many progressive elements in music, and the stuff on here comes close to pop and alternative, but the songs are still catchy as hell. It all opens with quite industrial metallic epic "New Millennium". Strange song. I still don't knock love or hate this one. But I surely love the following song - "You Not Me". Itis, in fact, simple pop hard songs with lyrics like "Watching you run is making me crazy". No surprise it was co-written with Desmond Child. Anyway, "Peruvian Skies" is kinda commercial rocker too, but it's got great vocal melody, amazing acoustic arranges and superb chours. "Hollow Years" is a beautiful ballad with dorky lyrics. Short piano interplays between the choruses and verses make me feel happy. The next one - "Burning My Soul" is my favourite Dream Theater song. Amazing melody, nu-metallic power, memorable chorus and extremely great keyboard solo from Derek -you gonna check this one. The following short instrumental "Hell's Kitchen" is probably the worst song Dream Theater ever written - it's just nothing, four minutes of pure filler!

The second half of the album opens with one of the best John Petrucci songs - "Lines In The Sand". From beautiful guitar intro and great vocals to chorus (where James sings together with Doug Pinnick of King's X and it works!) and the ending - 12 minutes of pure paradise. Lyrics rule too. As well as on "Take Away My Pain", by the way - great touchful ballad dedicated to John's father death. "Just Let Me Breathe" is lyrically some kind of tribute to Mark Knopfler - remember that Dire Straits "Money For Nothing". It is about fully idiotism of commercial music. Funny, but it was placed on Dream Theater's most commercial album. Music is great too - especially fast (somewhat rapping) chorus. Ah, and it gave to us all this "eMpTyV" title. "Anna Lee" is a Queen rip-offed ballad - beautiful piano and May-like guitar tricks are here and there. I like it anyway. And, finally, John Myung's "Trial Of Tears" is a gorgeous 13-minute epic. Instrumental part "Deep In Heaven" is absolutely amazing as well. So there, next time you see this album in your CD shop - buy it.

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Double live album, fully recorded on one live show in Paris. All two disks last more than 75 minutes and it makes the album longer than those 3LP releases as Yessongs, Welcome Back My Friedns To The Show That Never Ends, Wings Over America or Europe'72. The album is their best live anyway (still, I haven't heard 3CD live album Metropolis 2000: Live Scenes From New York) - two CDs of pure thrill (well...Almost all of the time). Let’s come through the material. The album starts with the first part of "A Change Of Seasons" - "The Crimson Sunrise". Nothing changed since A Change Of Seasons. Next part of the song - "Innocence" - suffers a bit from strange James LaBrie vocals, but the part itself is not very long and immediately follows intro powerful instrumental intro of "The Mirror" entitled "Puppies On Acid" (one of the worst song titles ever). "Just Let Me Breathe" is shorter and much more energetic at all. "Voices" are the same old "Voices" - just good standard Dream Theater epic. "Take The Time" has great idea to let crowd sing that "taaaaaaaaaaaake the tiiiiiiime" line and, overall, the song is not bg disappointment, including great jamming at the end. Derek’s piano solo is a piece of shit - one and so on minute of boring piano. "Lines In The Sand" has even more atmospheric intro than the original version and vocal production are really cute. "Scarred" is good too, though the great ending of the song is not here - the song just follows into another "A Change Of Seasons" part - "The Darkest Of Winters" which is just a fast jam follows into a little bit castrated version of "Ytse Jam" with long and boring drum solo from Mike Portnoy. I really like drum solos, but I really don’t mind this one. The second disk is even better - it opens with "Trial Of Tears". I have no words. John Petrucci is a god after THIS. "Hollow Years" is much more perfect than the studio version and so is "Take Away My Pain".The last one is a warm acoustic ballad with sax on here. Great stuff - you must listen to it."Caught In A Web" is somewhat cheesy now with James shouts the words instead of singing them. There is a great version of "Lie" and even more great of "Peruvian Skies" (I gotta love that powerful guitar accord before the song). John Petrucci’s 8-minute solo is boring and drag sometimes, but it is worthy to hear. "Pull Me Under" surprisingly does not degenerates me. Finally, medley of most of "Metropolis,Part 1",s mall cut of "Learning To Live" and the final part of "A Change Of Seasons"-"The Crimson Sunset" is just great way to end any Dream Theater concert with all of those crazy metal solos Petrucci gives in "Metropolis", but I wish there would be a jam part of "Learning To Live" instead of vocal part of "Learning To Live".

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One of the best albums ever and the best prog-metal album - this is Scenes From A Memory. It's got everything you need from prog album - bombastic melodies, catchy riffs, great singing and superb jamming. Plus, it is a conceptual/rock-opera album! I don't really want to tell you about the concept, just because I (and many other people) simply don't mind it. One word - it is a second part of "Metropolis" from Images And Words with melodies and lyrical themes taken from there and clearly re-written. Oh - and I nearly forgot - Derek Sherinian lef the band and new keyboardist Jordan Rudess joined. He is, clearly, the best keyboard man the guy ever had. The first act of the album begins with small acoustic "Regression" and turns into powerful "Overture 1928" mixing old "Metropolis, Part 1" melodies with melodies from this album. "Strange Dena Vu" is a pure hard-rock tune with great soloing and singing. "Through My Words" is a little piano interlude which turns right to really heavy metal of "Fatal Tragedy" played as fast as guys could. "Beyond This Life" is an 11 minute epic with amazing jams here and there and really great John ,Myung lyrics (as always!), although they are quite simple. Finally, "Through Her Eyes" is a quite little ballad with beautiful singing from Theresa Thomason.

Act number two opens with almost 13 minute epic called "Home". Although the main bass line was rip-offed from Tool song called "Forty Six & 2" (from Aenima album), it is the best song on here. Eastern-influnced, with keyboards imitating sitar and great melody and jams - pure thrill! "The Dance Of Eternity' is a good jam, feautures cool ragtime section. "One Last Time" is a hard-rocking ballad where James clearly shines. "The Spirit Carries On" is such a Pink Floyd-ish ballad that it makes me eek, but the song is good. Finally, "Finally Free" is a great song with catchy pop chorus and spooky jamming in the end turns into various studio effect. Buy this album now, buy it.

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Another album from Dream Theater - ths time on two CDs. The first disk is a collection of long (and not-so-long) epics and the second one is just one 42-minute epic divided into eight different parts. Sound became much more metallic and interesting, but there are too many jams this time. At least, for me. The first CD opens with 13-minute "The Glass Prison" - one of the heaviest song I have ever heard. Long and different jamming parts (Jordan shines on here!), different cool vocal melodies (James een comes close to do so rap in one). The third part sounds like early Anthrax. "Blind Faith" lasts for ten minutes and it easily can be called as just one long jam with some vocals adding. Again, some really heavy muzak on here. And interesting too. "Misunderstood" is the best song on here - starts like a calm acoustic ballad, and then goes into heavy Metallica-like ballad. It quickly turns into large keyboard jam which sounds really cool. Lyrics are terrible ("How can I bite the hand thatn feed the strangers all around me?"), but the song is great. "The Great Debate" is an overlong but quite good 13-minute epic and "Disappear" a very bad psychedelic-like ballad.

So,the first disk ended badly and now it’s time to put the second disk into the CD-player! As you may understood, it’s consists of one 42-minute title track, which is dived into eigh different parts (read-"songs"), which are even marked as tracks on CD. Maybe the idea to construct such songs came from Mike Portnoy. Remember his work in Transtalntic where guys wrote three 25+ minutes? So there. But know let me review all of the parts of the epic, which seems to be about nothing. "Overture" is an almost seven minute pseudo-classical instrumental that seems to be one of my least favourite moments on the album. Don’t know why anyone put it at all. Though, next part called "About To Crash" is another hard-pop song with amazingly catchy chours and driving melodies. Two next parts - "War Inside My Head" and "The Test That Stuped Them All" are wild heavy nu-metallic songs with roaring and wild vocal. After those wild things, calm ballad "Goodnight Kiss" seems to be something odd and stupid-it’s completely throaway track.And it lasts for friggin’ five minutes! Holy shit! Fortunately, next "Solitary Shell" is much better, even thogh it is a balant clone of Peter Gabriel’s "Solsbury Hill". Instrumental reprise of "About To Crash" is good jam, while "Losing Time" is an interesting ballad which easily beats "Goodnight Kiss" to Hell. Finally,"Grand Finale" is stupid two minute ending with one note held down for all of this time.

So,Six Degrees seems to be the regressive album from Scenes From A Memory.Buy it now for your collection and enjoy it as you can...Ah,and I have no idea what "Six degrees of inner turbulence" is,by the way? Maybe someone, except Dream Theater themselves know it?

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Readers Comments Ert Pehka ert.pehka@revalhotels.com Ah,and I have no idea what "Six degrees of inner turbulence" is,by the way? Maybe someone, except Dream Theater themselves know it? Hello, As far as I know its different states of mental illness =) Interesting reviews, although I dont agree at points (got all albums at home btw) /bye Aragorn345@aol.com I don't agree with you on most of you dream theater posts first of all images and words is a great album and deserves more than a 5 1/2 it is there greatest album. Then SDOIT misunderstood is not the best song on the album it is the worst the ending is really annoying and can never listen to when listening to the album. Also Disappear is "not a very bad psychedelic-like ballad" it is one of the best songs on the album and sounds very cool I.A bisonte83@yahoo.it i don't agree with most of your ideas about DT. first of all you have to consider that a group as DT doesn't work on METAL. and it's not metallica or something else style... i really don't understand why people insist on putting some groups [like DT] in already existing categories.... i think it's stupid i think also that the succes in DT's songs is in HARMONY... which is obtained with a right measure of metallic and melodic elements. and the melodic elements are the best i ever heard... some songs are perfect and adding or taking away something from them would be an error and would ruin great masterpieces. great DT... go on!!! cservaiscservais@shaw.ca You seem to dislike most of Dream Theater's quieter, less heavy songs especially in 6DoiT (Overture, Goodnight Kiss). For both songs you indicated that you would rather have had them removed. What you don't seem to understand is that Dream Theater is only partly about it's Heavy music. The other part os DT is it's slower, more touching and, yes, sometimes odd or out of place peaceful songs. You've only identified a few such ballads that you enjoy throughout their whole discography. I just don't like to see songs like that labeled as 'bad' or 'throwaway' just because the reviewer was expecting the wrong thing from the music. xristos karach1@otenet.gr SOME PEOPLE HERE WITH THEIR COMMENTS MADE ME BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE IDIOTS AND CAN'T FEEL THE DT MUSIC!!!!! IMAGES AND WORDS IS THE BEST DT ALBUM WAKE UP !!!!!! ALL THE SONGS TOUCH PERFECTION. EVEN DT TODAY CAN'T MAKE AN ALBUM EQUAL TO THIS. AWAKE COMES AFTER IT. AND CHANGE OF SEASONS AND METROPOLIS 2 COME AFTER IT. BUT GENNERALLY ALL THE ALBUMS ARE VERY GOOD