SYSTEMATIC CHAOS

My expectations for this albums were extremely high. I discovered Dream Theater about two years ago. It wasn't until i heard A Change Of Seasons that I really started listening and it quickly became my favourite band.

I've never really been able to appreciate their later albums, with Train of Thought being the exception. In an interview one of the band members stated that the new album would have material that would certainly appeal to their long-time fans, so I expected to hear at least a spark of Images & Words or Awake in the songs.

The new album I feel is closest to Train of Thought but doesn't capture the freshness in that album. I really miss the searing high vocals of LaBrie and I fear he'll never really recover from his vocal chords rupturing. Also it sounds like the music was written and the vocal melodies were sort off pasted onto that which really removes a lot of tension from the music. There are certainly very clever riffs and movements in the songs but somehow they don't really stick out like they did in earliers works.

I think the main reason for their albums turning up like this is they're not crazy kids anymore who have a burning passion to simply make kickass music and take years to perfectionize a song. Lock the DT members up in a cave for four years and I swear you will get an album the world has never seen.