It was easy to be a fan of Dream Theater's 2019 album Distance Over Time. Coming off the back of disastrous experiment The Astonishing, having an album from the prog legends that actually cut out flab and focused a little more on songwriting was a huge improvement, as was the lack of lengthy songs. Well, good times don't last; A View From the Top of the World, the band's fifteenth full-length, isn't anywhere near as bad as The Astonishing but it does rebalance the formula back towards prog pomp, showing off musicianship over songwriting in a series of songs the shortest of which is over six minutes, with no less than three out of seven tracks here over nine minutes and another twenty-minute monster to finish the album.

As you'd expect, this harms the memorability of A View... and even makes it something of a slog on initial listens, not helped by the chuggy tone to Petrucci's riffing that lasts throughout and is the one stain on an otherwise flawless production (handled as usual by Petrucci with mastering done by Andy Sneap) that even manages to show off Myung's basslines for once. It's a shame because the band are clearly feeling confident and are at their heaviest in years, kicking off the album with the nine-minute The Alien packed full of instrumental trade-offs and familiar Theater-esque melodies and leads. Long-term fans will be in familiar territory, the opposite of adventurous, and it will depend a lot on the listener as to whether this is solid Dream Theater, or Dream Theater sounding generic and recycling their own material. Hard to know for sure, even as a fan!

What's undeniable are, as you'd expect, the usual strengths of the band are shining brightly. The musicianship is out of this world, for example, solos confidently traded throughout in the expected instrumental sections and always played to perfection. Mike Mangini has taken a little while to fill the shoes left by Mike Portnoy, but A View... shows his best performance with the band to date, making each song worth listening to for his drumming alone. LaBrie receives a lot of flak but his performance here is perfectly judged, never straining at the notes and sounding much less processed than on Distance Over Time. And although the songwriting can be Theater-by-numbers, particularly on the downright unimpressive second single Invisible Monster, there are enough bright moments here and there to tip the balance towards recommending the album overall.

Sleeping Giant is definitely a highlight, for instance, progging out tastefully without going overboard (even with some more orchestral-style keyboards and honky-tonk piano from Rudess) and a vocal melody that helps make for LaBrie's best performance on the album. Transcending Time has moments that lean far too much towards Rush worship but is a solid enough song regardless, and although Awaken the Master is the first piece that Petrucci has written on eight-string guitars, it doesn't devolve into the kind of djenty mess that might have happened in the Portnoy era - although neither does it do anything especially impressive, either! The consistent fault here is that the songs are too samey and similar, particularly in the verses, with not enough happening to make moments stand out or be memorable until you've listened to the album many times.

And the twenty-minute closing title track tries but can't really escape this, opening with grandiose synths and building into a meandering chuggy stomper that moves from lighter, ballad-esque moments to proggy instrumental jams to vocal-led emotion through widdly guitar and keyboard leads - it feels like a longer version of the album's formula. As far as longer pieces from the bands go it doesn't approach the classic A Change of Seasons; hell, Octavarium, Illumination Theory, even The Count of Tuscany is much better and more memorable - maybe this just needs a little longer to sink its claws in but the band have definitely done much better. It feels like something from a Dream Theater album ten or even twenty years ago, the band ageing but not seeming able to bring their music with them. And overall it sums this up, very much a stereotypical Dream Theater album, full of wanky instrumental moments and more light than heat. Said Rush-isms on Transcending Time are the most out-there experiments, which is practically jawdropping given how much past Dream Theater albums would try and ape the likes of Muse or Metallica. Instead of constantly trying to keep up with young peers, the band have settled into their rut and seem content to be making music for themselves, and A View From the Top of the World is accordingly Dream Theater at their most obnoxious to the core. Monoliths of their genre, making music that is assuredly difficult to play but even harder to love.