PARASOMNIA

Having now listened to Parasomnia for a third time (though its singles a few more times each), and this time more closely, I offer a track by track review:

With In the Arms of Morpheus, it's a fine instrumental, though I think that it doesn't quite pick up until like halfway through with the keyboard solo, where that and the guitar solo start to pick up the creativity and really make the payoff of listening to the intro worth it.

For Night Terror, I think it's decent and is even pretty good in some sections, though some of the production and vocal melodies don't sit quite right with me. But the riffs and solos hit well I think, which is refreshing overall on the album. I do kinda wish that it felt a bit heavier though, but that's alright.

Broken Man is still a great track and I do really appreciate the incorporation of that jazzy part in the middle. Just overall quite solid with a hard opening riff. Definitely would've been my #1 choice for a single off of the album. This track to me signals more of a return to creativity from the earlier Portnoy era of the band.

Dead Asleep is where we start to see a good bit of creativity on display. Great intro with some awesome riffs right at the beginning. Additionally, the vocal melodies in this song don't seem that contrived. And the guitar and keyboard solos don't just seem like generic JP and JR noodling but actually contribute to the song which is nice. The transitions are also well done. And it ends as softly as it begins.

Midnight Messiah might be my favorite track on the album. This song is unmistakably thrash-y though also decidedly a DT song and I quite love it. It feels like a musical homage to some of DT's influences like Metallica. And the lyrics are themselves throwbacks to earlier DT, which is fun. And I do also love the 80s-like guitar shredding from JP after his other guitar solo.

Are We Dreaming? offers a brief somewhat unsettling though gentle interlude between the last song and Bend the Clock. Not much to say about this track.

Bend the Clock naturally is the next track, and is the ballad of the album. I'm somewhat surprised they didn't make this song a single, as it seems more suited for that than Night Terror. After a soft intro, the guitar kicks in and leaves us with a good ballad. Not much does stand out to me from this song except for the guitar solo at the end, which is long, melodic, and well performed. That alone makes this song worth listening to.

And that finally leaves us with The Shadow Man Incident, the epic of the album. It's a little disappointing to me that the beginning of it really seems to reflect a lot of their earlier work and especially A View From The Top Of The World. That's not to say it's bad, just derivative. However, around the 3 minute mark, the real riffing kicks in and it starts to actually feel like its own song. Then, the song goes back to being soft and as two stories are sung about interactions with the 'Shadow Man.' But, the music builds and after a spoken line the song really picks up, and this 'Shadow Man' is revealed as the antagonist. After that there is a flurry of many musical ideas lasting throughout the rest of the song. The song to me doesn't feel quite like an epic, but more like a longer song based off the rest of the album if that makes sense. That said, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing as the rest of the album is pretty good. But the same song could have potentially been like 7 or 8 minutes, though I will take this "extended" edition.

Overall, it seems like they are keeping pace with where they left off with A View From The Top Of The World, which (for me at least) is a welcome sign. Yes, Dream Theater has their sound which they won't change. But, taken on its own (and even as part of the DT catalogue), this is a great album. Especially with the age of the band, it's really cool that they can still make good music. And while there is more I could say about how this compares with their other albums, that's not what this review is for.

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