Metal Reviews

I finally picked this up and I have to admit that the review is pretty spot on. It's a good album, nothing more. Which is why I'm a bit disappointed since I want more from a Dream Theater album. Overall it's just too long. They should have scrapped two songs and some of those 10+ epics didn't need to be that long. I also agree with the lack of passion from LaBrie and Mangini being too much on the background. I'm hoping this is the first step to something greater.
Also, I still like Black Clouds more than this one. Black Clouds had 2 amazing songs (Nightmare and Count of Tuscany), 2 good ones and some filler. This has less filler but not a single song reaches the level of The Count of Tuscany. Maybe it has to grow on me some more, I hope it does.

I always thought Tuscany had weird lyrics. All of this "I'm afraid for my life, please let me go!" shit when the lyrics don't really say anything more than "Some dude brought me to his place and gave me a tour of his house."

Nightmare to Remember though.... awesome song.

Agreed with the perception that this album is decent but nothing to write home about. 73/100 seems like a pretty fair score.

I bought the album, have listened to it several times, and I don't hear any similarity between this new album and 'Images and Words'. Sometimes I feel that some DT fans are just super nostalgic and hope that the band will recreate 'Images and Words' in a modern format. It's not going to happen. Just as Queensryche fans are never going to get an album that would return QR to 'Mindcrime' glory. I do like 'A Dramatic Turn of Events' a lot. It's what I would expect from DT at this point in their career. As I've listened to this album I hear a lot of YES influences, particularly in the longer instrumental passages of songs like 'Outcry'.

The similarities are in the structures of the songs. Take "On The Backs Of Angels." It follows "Pull Me Under"'s structure pretty faithfully. Just take the first part; you got the clean guitar intro that builds up with drums, bass, keyboards and go into a rhythmic riff, then the vocals kick in, after the first pre-chorus they go into a super-sweet solo section, then come back in with the verse.

I don't hear it.

????

Dude, that song's built, like, exactly the same as Pull Me Under. I'm confused as to how you can't hear it, tbh.

Mike Portnoy admitted to hearing it too.

Oh yeah, Portnoy 'admitted' to hearing that, did he? Lol.

It was also reported that Portnoy remarked that he would have waited for Petrucci if he had wanted to take a break to write a song like this...

C'mon, I'm not a fan but...
Dream Theater... Adrenaline Mob...
Clearly one sucks and poor bitter Portnoy's involved in it.

As an non-fan, all I can say is this album sounded much better than anything with Portnoy the band's recently released. The pseudo-tough-guy attitude is gone and now the guys can drink backstage withouth the mad drummer having a ceasure.
All is well as it is.

Gave it a fair go when it came out but haven't felt the need to go back to this, suppose with the change I was maybe expecting more and while it's another solid/safe Dream Theater album what's new? They are many other prog/metal groups I perfer over DT these days.

WHOA album has clicked. Really enjoying this now.

Checking this out now. Am not a huge fan of Black Clouds and Silver Linings (though The Count of Tuscany is a fantastic song and A Nightmare to Remember is good albeit too long), but all I ask from Dream Theatre at this point is that they have two or three good songs per album. Hopefully this one can fulfill that expectation...

The guitar and drums can sound a bit simplistic if you're not paying much attention - seems to have far more keyboard complexity than is strictly necessary. But it's a damn good album, all in all.

If you want great drumming check out Arch/Matheos Sympathetic Resonance now that's a top prog metal CD.

I actually picked that up the other day as a blind buy. Havent cracked into it yet.