SYSTEMATIC CHAOS

I've been highly critical of just about everything Dream Theater has done post Scenes, but I could always say that there was at least one song, most likely more, on every studio album that I could really enjoy. Systematic Chaos changed that claim. This album comes off as a Dream Theater album covering Dream Theater songs. All the clichés rightfully or wrongfully attributed to them are displayed here, almost shown off even. From what I deduce listening to this album and hearing Mike Portnoy's comments about it before the album was released, Systematic Chaos seems like it was written for the fans, with the intent to please them. They appear to have wanted to make an album to please fans of all their different time periods. And as always happens when writing to please somebody, the music is cold and not pleasing anybody.

Systematic Chaos shows a band mindlessly going through the motions. The whole affair is so predictable and indistinguishable from anything they've ever done (in terms of sound not quality). Besides the prominence of Mike Portnoy's backing vocals I noticed nothing different from this and anything released prior. And that isn't exactly a welcomed change.

I'm sorry for the overt negativity of the review, but I could find no silver lining.

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