METROPOLIS PART 2 - SCENES FROM A MEMORY

Some sort of double intros open this album. An acoustic and spacey one gets you into condition for this long theater scenes. The real start is "Overture 1928". By now, you are even more conditioned and the voyage through the scenes can effectively start with "Strange Déja Vu". The metal approach is of course noticeable, but not only. The dual side of "DT" is fully integrated into this song. A good combination of both world : rock and metal. A good start so far.

"Fatal Tragedy" starts where the short "Through My Words" has closed. Acoustic and peaceful (!). This tragedy will of course not remain so. The beat will catch up to reach the rock territories and finally, the so fantastic "wall of music" will hurt the listener after three minutes. This is a beautiful crescendo. But you might know that I am found of this type of song evlotion (from slow to crazy). This is the first (but do not worry there will be more) highlight of this album.

Extremely heavy intro for "Beyoond This Life". One of the ten + minutes songs from this album. You can leave the prog adjective when describing this song. Pure heavy metal. A bit "hard" (!) to digest if you are not really in there. Some relief during some quieter vocal passages (two or three) will allow the listener to break. But the last four minutes just feature a repetitive and very little interesting riff. I was trying to find to which band this song sounds like and actually the vocals are fully Mikael Akerfeldt oriented ("Opeth"). Not the growling ones, but the subtle and wonderful crystal clear ones.

Another great contrast during "Through Her Eyes". A standard "DT" rock ballad. Not really great, I'm afraid, but the band often tried this genre throughout their albums. Some of these songs were good, but rarely great. This one is no exception.

"Home" is just fantastic. Not really prog IMO, but I guess that it is the type of song that really converts you into a "DT" fan. Of course, you have to like the hard, the metal "subtility". Long intrumental guitar breaks, wild rhythm, fantastic Portnoy and great Petrucci. But is it worth to mention these characteristics ? They are so deeply "DT" impregnated...One of my fave "DT"ever. Dynamite and brilliance.

The very average "The Dance of Eternity" does not really hold the comparison of course. But it was almost impossible. The problem by now, is that the next two songs are on the mellowish side. One might say that it gives a break in all this frenzy but I do not really belong to these. I far much prefer when "DT" mixes the genres during the same song and offer these brilliant prog / metal combination within a song ("A Song Within A Song" if you know what I mean).

"The Spirit Carries On" features an excellent guitar solo and a nice melody. I am not sure that this type of songs is really what a true "Dream Theater" is expecting. Maybe more the casual proghead willing to enter their repertoire. But I do not belong to either one of these categories.

This album was my second purchase from the band. I believe that it is a good entry to anyone who is willing to enter the "DT" catalogue. The closing number is another highlight. Again, the structure is pretty much a crescendo one. It works very efficiently. Somewhat mellow again during the intro but extremely pleasant. Most of "Dream Theater" aspects are hold here (except the heavy and metal ones).

"Scenes" is a good album. But I can hardly go over three stars for this effort.