Monday 24 August ' Why no blogs? Well, 'tis the season for festivals, hence musicians are in hiding, more or less. Also, I've been on holiday for a fortnight, therefore there hasn't been much for me to blog about, or maybe I've been a bit lame in putting finger to keyboard. So, to atone for my lacklustre performance over the past three weeks, here are some reviews of music that I'm currently listening to.
My story starts a little while ago when I pre-ordered Dream Theater's new album Black Clouds & Silver Linings. Why did I do that? I've no idea. I have nothing previously by Dream Theater. I recall seeing the name, and that's it. Sometimes I act on impulse and generally it turns out good, as in this case. BC&SL is made up of six tracks, running for about 75 minutes, so that should give you some idea of what's on offer. Basically we're talking prog-metal, a genre I generally find difficult to get into, although I'm making progress with assistance from Porcupine Tree. The first listen of the album gave the impression of classical music delivered via the medium of heavy rock, in a good way. Without going into a track by track listing I can say that each track is distinctive yet comprises a mini-symphony with multiple time signature changes and solo arrangements featuring all the members of the band. The lyrics are meaningful, not too poetic, and delivered sometimes in a standard song structure, and sometimes as a spoken poem. James LaBrie usually handles the singing while atmospheric growls are provided by Mike Portnoy. The drumming runs the spectrum from non-existence to maniacal, while the guitar work is to die for. Superb doesn't even come close. Whilst every track is brilliant, the highlight for me is The Shattered Fortress, apparently the last in a series of twelve musically and lyrically linked tracks spread over their last few albums that deals with Mike Portnoy's recovery from alcoholism.
I was so blown away by Black Clouds... that I started trawling Dream Theater's back catalogue and came up with a couple of titles at very reasonable prices. First up was Images And Words which turned out to be the band's second album, the first to feature (Kevin) James LeBrie, and widely hailed as their finest moment. Sounding like a car crash between Rush and Black Sabbath, many critics regard this album as one of the earliest examples of modern progressive metal. I don't know enough about the genre to comment, but I know what I like in my wardrobe and this is it. The opening track, Pull Me Under, pretty much epitomises much of their work; just over eight minutes of heavy riffs, catchy melodies, multi-layered virtuoso keyboard and guitar work, finished off with a healthy dollop of amazing lyrics. The next three tracks are diverse and yet similarly complex with their time and mood changes. Track 5 is the monumental Metropolis - Pt. I "The Miracle And The Sleeper" weighing in at over nine and a half minutes. Clearly classically inspired these is metal heaven with heavy riffs, complex drumming and emotive lyrics. The heavy bits are h-e-a-v-y, the quiet bits are the calmest metal can be yet still be holding onto your ears. Simply sublime. A lesser album might tail off at this point, not this one. Under A Glass Moon is a meld of beauty and aggression with an epic, and I mean EPIC guitar solo. Wait For Sleep gives us a haunting pause for breath before the gargantuan finale, Learning To Live, an almost space-prog-metal track. I'm making up my own genres here.
The second DT "reasonably priced album", was Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory, a reference to the masterpiece track from the Images And Words album. Apparently DT were given full creative control for this, their fifth studio album. It is a concept album that deals with the story of a man named Nicholas and the discovery of his past life through hypnotic regression, involving love, murder, and infidelity as Victoria Page. As a story, it makes fascinating reading, a real tale with a savage twist to it that stretches from the present day back to 1928. Musically it is structured as two Acts comprising nine Scenes split over twelve tracks. The final tracks ends with static from a record player and marks the beginning of what people have called a meta-album where the last note or noise of one album is the same or similar to the beginning of the next. The Dream Theater meta-album spans four albums, from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory to Octavarium. Octavarium ends the meta-album by having the same piano note at the beginning and end of the same album. Concept albums, by their nature, are more about the story than the music, but once I knew the story the music just me along in a very natural way. The music is, of course, stunningly superb, but it never overwhelms, and the whole thing is beautifully constructed and executed.
Summing up then... I'm so glad I bought BC&SL as it's opened my ears to a fantastic band and brilliant music. I thoroughly recommend these three albums and will probably end up getting their entire back catalogue and recommending them as well!
