AWAKE

Awake is one of the albums with the biggest number of changes of the rating I have ever handed out. I bought it shortly after its release and liked it quite well, especially the one six star song. The problem was, however, that I slipped into my "folky" phase when I preferred artists like Runrig, U2 and even the Dubliners over Power and Progressive Metal around the millenium. This was the reason why I didn't buy another Dream Theater album for nearly ten years, but after I returned to the more progressive and powerful sounds Awake became one of my favourite albums again.

The six star song had always been in my then much shorter favourite playlist, but it has now been joined by The Silent Man. There are other really good songs on Awake, like the first two parts of the trilogy A Mind Beside Itself which The Silent Man concludes, but none of them is outstanding. I guess that I would have awarded five stars eight years ago, but after I got Octavarium, Systematic Chaos and especially Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, I can't uphold this rating.

So now it's down to strong four stars, certainly four and a half over at metalmusicarchives. You'd like to know the name of the six star song? Sorry for holding back. it is the last track on the album, Space Dye-Vest which I liked for its weird title even before the first listening, and still consider to be the best Dream Theater song (together with Octavarium).