IMAGES AND WORDS

I'm gonna say once and for all that if you're a progressive metal fan then this is essential. It basically established the main sound not only of Dream Theater, but of hundreds and hundreds of bands too. If you don't think that's an essential album then I don't know what else is.

After their odd debut, When Dream And Day Unite, the band decided to do some changes. Pretty much everyone in the band, Charlie Dominici himself, thought that he had to go since his vocals were very restricting to the music that they intended to make. After a good amount of vocalist auditions, the winner was chosen: James LaBrie. The loved and hated Canadian singer that to this day remains in the band. His wide vocal range was exactly what the instrumentalists in Dream Theater were looking for, and chemistry between the band and James happened.

This chemistry was part of the reason why creativity in Dream Theater blew up. They were still young, and had to mature a lot musically, but you could tell that they had a very strong energy for revolutionizing their genre inside. And this is what happened when they released Images And Words.

Images And Words isn't a very big album, in fact, it's their second shortest album. But the amount of things that Dream Theater explores in just those fifty-six minutes is truly outstanding. Technical Passages (Under A Glass Moon, Metropolis Pt. I), melodic ballads (Another Day, Surrounded, Wait For Sleep), dynamic and balanced tracks (Pull Me Under, Take The Time, Learning To Live) are very present in this album. And it's all around a very fun listening experience that never gets boring.

Like I said in the beginning: If you're a progressive metal fan, it's essential. If you're not into metal then I still recommend you to give it a try. Five stars, Dream Theater's first milestone.

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