METROPOLIS PART 2 - SCENES FROM A MEMORY

Dream Theater have been producing unique and incredible albums since 1992's "Images and Words" and easily built up a reputation for releasing masterpieces in progressive rock. Of course it was always suspected that Dream Theater would release another of these masterpieces but when the band followed up their "Falling into Infinity" album, many fans and critics were astonished by how much a band can make the step up by exceeding a previous masterpiece.

This album is "Scenes from a Memory", an 80 minute long progressive concept album that plays almost like a "rock opera" (especially on stage). The lyrics here followed a genius plot and are able to untangle a story involving love and tragedy whilst producing the bands best pieces of music to date. Scenes boasts incredible guitar and keyboard battles, thundering basslines and mouth watering drum work, as well as LaBrie's inspiritional vocals and Pettruci's incredible long and fiddley guitar solos. The foundations of this album are built up by the solid musicianship that the band have built up over the last 10 years, but what separates this album from the others is how the band pushed themselves furthur than their limits to produce a beautiful piece of music that is as close to perfection as you can find.

The record suceeds in blending heavy guitar fury, emotional melodies and mellow acoustic pieces, backed by LaBries wide variety of singing styles and an excellent change of speedy keyboard solos and heart filled slow pieces. This album is also a huge step up on experimenting with music. Scenes from a Memory includes sound effects, scripted characters and a more realistic array of background sounds. These are played alongside the daring use of choirs, female vocalists, orchestral pieces and speaking parts within the songs. This is quite daring and can often drift away from the bands progressive metal background but it is much better to see how many different directions Dream Theater can take on one album.

Although this album is much more mellow and emotional than previous pieces, the album makes up for this by including some of the bands best heavy metal input of their career. "Overture 1928" is a brilliant metallic solo to set the scene of things to come and essentially warm up the album. This alone plays as a brilliant conceptual progressive piece as well as a strong individual instrumental. The astonishing furious guitar and keyboard battle in the middle of "Fatal Tragedy" is one of the best things i have ever heard, alongside Petrucci's incredible weaving guitar solo. "Home" and "Beyond This Life" are also must haves for any metal fans alongside the dark and haunting "Dance of Eternity".

The mellow parts of the album are just as brilliant. Two emotional pieces standout here and show LaBrie's best ever singing quality. "Strange Deja Vous" shows an everchanging pattern in glorious vocal melodies. LaBrie's voice sours ahead of all of his previous work. "Regression" includes a beautiful acoustic ballad but the slow piano fueled piece, "Through Her Eyes" shows off the best moments of Rudess' piano skills. LaBrie and Petrucci's best songwriting skills is seen clearly here (although it is in most of their other tracks too). "Through Her Eyes" is incredibly moving and is a huge improvement on similar pieces from previous albums such as "The Silent Man" and "Wait For Sleep".

Scenes from a Memory is the very definition of progressive rock and this album remains one of the best concept albums and finest pieces of music ever written.