METROPOLIS PART 2 - SCENES FROM A MEMORY

This CD is my Favorite album ever, and i have taken that statement into very deep concideration bofer i wrote it down. and im not just some upstart kid who dosent know anything about the prog genre. ok this is going to be a bit of an inflametory statement, but i prefer this album to The Wall. And piper at the gates of dawn And any of the ELP releases. and anything ever come to that. the storyline of this album is run over in so many reviews, im not gona go over it again. Right, on to the music! The performance on this album is phenominal as per the dream theater habit. I recon its at least cooler playing if not better than on anything theyve ever done before. Fatal tragedy is my personal fave, it took more than a month to learn that solo. Petrucci is an animal of a player.some of the riffery on this record is a blast. Whomever it was who said in their review that Mike Portnoy relies to heavily on his bass drums needs a slap around the face with a wet fish. the only possible criticim of his playing on this album is his possibly over zellous use of THE Mike Portnoy fill ( you know the one its the one at 3:47 in fatal tragedy, check through other dream theater work, it crops up alot, some times in slightly varied forms but still, its the MP Fill, its excusable.) that aside, the winner of modern drummer's reders poll Progressive rock award for 10 years running again proves his worth. Jordan Rudess is patently the most crazy keyboardist DT have had yet. i love the random bit of honkey tonk stylie piano in dance of eternity the first time i heard it i was like 'this is so cool' and then just burst out laghing when i realised it was in the midle of two big chunks of random metaly goodness. and just the way patrucci leads it in with this utterly random arpegio... plus check out some of the points when Rudess and Petrucci are playing the same or harmonised parts, and just take a second to think of the amount of skill it takes to get that timeing down to perfection, there is not a milisecond between them. that boys and girls is perfection. and again, look at fatal tragedy, the blending between the keyboard and guitar solos is virtualy seemless. as with all good things, there will be contradictory views, but i think the guy is a change for the good, he takes a more active part in the band than any of his predecesors. Kevin more was cool, he was beastly in fact and some of the stuff he did totaly made a couple of songs for me, but he didnt solo any good, and the introduction of Jordans solos bring new life into the music and push the instrumentals to a new level, he and Petrucci work togeter excelently. James Labrie, the man of marmite, you either love him or hate him. personaly i think that anyone who dosnt like him is missing the point, he is the most cheesy singer possible, but thats what you ned if youre going to sing in dream theater. I chalange anyone to come up with a better choice for singer of dream theater. think about it, if you had anyone else, someone less 'larger than life' , dream theater wouldnt have half the impact. also, its tough to have the vocal versitility needed for a band so versatile. As always, James' vocals are excelent, the melodys used are nigh on perfect every time. mind you this isnt nessicerily his work, but he pulls off what is writen perfectly and with alot of 'feeling'. And last but by no means least, John Myung. this man is a bass phenominon. him crazy. the bass solo in dance of eternity is mental.plus the bit neat the end where the guitar bass and keyboard all run up this crazy. he can hold the structure together when any lesser bassist would break down in tears and play that thing like no other being on the planet. it stick him up on the sme level as victor wooten, which is prety crazy thats like bass steve vai.... now on to the real astounding aspect ofthe album, the song construction. seriously, go back now and listen over this album again. and again. aind again and again for 50 thousand times and you still will miss stuff. the way this stuff is put together just defys belief. every note, every rest and every space are diliberet, their there to serve the greater perpous of the song. instead of just playing a chord on one instrument, they'll hold it between all of them like puting thre root on the bas the guitar with the octave fifth and seventh and the vocal holding the the top say and the keyboard underpining the whole chord. its crazy. i know this isnt the first time stuff like this has been done, but its the first time its been done on this scale. plus the rhythmic concepts used are just done perfectly, there is no way this album could have been writen better. people bitch about there being to many solos, but thats not the case, the solos dont clog the album up at all, if anything they cary the emotional level forwards. i was just reading back through the other reviews and read someone saying the solos are 'undiciplined. that couldnt be more untrue, they are just perfectly crafted to fit. oh another thing repetedly brought up is the word 'jam' these solos are not 'jams' jams are improvised. there is no way anything this perfect could be improvised. another thing oftern missed is that overture 1928 is a breif tour through the concepts that folow on in the album its like a trailer before the main feature. this is a briliant idea because as you listen through the rest of the album and your like 'ohohohohoh i know that phrase!' it gives the album an excelent sence of coherence. there have been alot of negative reviews of this album lately on ths site, and i think they are mostly un justified. i think personaly that people are leting a sence of tradition, the only thing you truly can not afford to have in the prog genre to cloud their judgment of an excelent album. NOW GO! BUY THIS ALBUM! AND IF YOU ALREADY HAVE IT, GO LISTEN TO IT AGAIN!!!!