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RELEASED: July 7 1992
PRODUCER:Daved Pater
LABEL:ATCO Records
BAND:James LaBrie
Kevin Moore
John Myung
John Petrucci
Mike Portnoy
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+
Virtuosic instrumental skills, Great composition, Each band member gets to strut their stuff
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The occasional sacrifice of good songwriting for technicality |
TRACKS:
1.Pull Me Under 2. Another Day 3. Take the Time 4.Surrounded 5.Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper 6.Under a Glass Moon 7.Wait for Sleep 8.Learning to Live |
OVERVIEW
I guess you could say I have a love-hate relationship with Dream Theater; both of my brothers are self-admitted DT freaks, and I heard more Dream Theater in 4 years of living under the same roof as those guys than most people will hear in a lifetime, not to mention arguing approximately every 20 minutes about whether or not they are, in fact, the greatest band of all time. And most DT fans I’ve met tend to be that way; the kind of guys that make fun of other bands for not being able to play triplets in 9/4 at 380bpm.
I’m not that kind of fan. I don’t have the majesty logo tattooed on any part of my body, Dream Theater regularly gets owned by other artists on my iTunes playlists, and I think their cover of “Master of Puppets” flat out sucks.
Anyways, now that we’ve established that I have at least some degree of objectivity here, I still think this is easily one of DT’s best releases and deserves at least 80% of the praise it gets in prog-rock circles. You’ve got all the ingredients of classic DT and arguably one of their best-written songs (“Pull Me Under”), along with stunning versatility that they somewhat fail to show on their later records. This is probably one of the only albums where each song really can stand by itself as a great, listenable song, with the possible exception of “Wait for Sleep”, and this is a great album to crank when you actually have time to listen, like on a long road trip. You’ll appreciate it a heck of a lot more. On to the songs!
SONGS
The album opens with the one song that somehow manages to capture everything Dream Theater does right- “Pull Me Under” is darn infectious, and still sounds perfectly fresh even though it was released over 15 years ago. “Another Day” is sort of sappy for a prog-metal band, but is still a great song with a stunning vocal performance from James Labrie that really shows off the man’s incredible range. “Take the Time” is the practically the definition of prog-metal – riffage and solos galore, odd times, and off-tempo rhythms that will give you a headache if you think about it too hard. Surprisingly, DT decides to put 2 ballad-esque songs within a track of each other – “Surrounded” is a piano-driven slow number that is dangerously close to cheesy in a Hallmark-card sort of way, but still works somehow. And that brings us to the arguable climax of this album: “Metropolis Part I: The Miracle and the Sleeper”. This song is the definition an epic and where DT really brings back the heaviness that makes tracks like “Pull Me Under” so great. Not a whole lot to say specifically about this one, but if you haven’t heard it, you’re missing out.
Unfortunately, the rest of the album kind of struggles to live up to the impossibly high standard set by the first 5 tracks. “Under a Glass Moon” is definitely a killer track instrumentally, but the vocal melodies on the chorus just drive me crazy. “Wait For Sleep” is a startlingly short piano number, but it works well as a surprise break from the insane off-tempo riffing and shredding we’ve been hearing for the past 40 minutes. “Learning to Live” is where the album really comes back into its own and is a great choice for an album closer – not many bands can even write a 7-minute song that’s interesting all the way through, nevermind this song’s 11:30 running time. Maybe not the most memorable song they’ve ever written, but it’s more because there are so many good parts that it’s simply hard to remember them all.
CONCLUSION
If there’s any one Dream Theater album you’re going to get, make it this one. If you’re at all into hard rock and metal, but prog-rock isn’t your thing (and it’s really not mine), you might be surprised at how much you find yourself liking this.
Review
by Matt Rewinski
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