SYSTEMATIC CHAOS

quite a difficult thing for me to review Systematic Chaos...mainly because it has one of my favourite DT songs: "In The Presence Of Enemies" (Pt.1 + Pt.2) and also the one that I probably hate most: "The Dark Eternal Night"...

to start with the good stuff, "In The Presence..." gets off to a roaring start with the instrumental intro commencing with a drum roll of sorts and is a great way to start the album. also a good way to recommence after the ending the "continuum" with Octavarium. never mind the cheesy lyrics (which James somehow maanges to make mythical and mysterious like they were supposed to be), the instrumental parts and vocal melodies are a killer combinations.

with a couple of good, but not special, songs "Forsaken" and "Constant Motion" done with, we come to the terrible piece of work and maybe DT's worst song "The Dark Eternal Night". for almost 9 minutes, they ramble on riff after riff, not managing to thrown in a single memorable bit. that, for a band of DT's calibre, is something quite unusual. they had some poor songs on "Falling Into Infinity" but nothing comes close to this...

thankfully, we are lifted out of our confused misery with the moody and mellow Repentance. the voices go on a little too long in the end but its quite a good song with an ambient atmosphere. then, we get "Prophets Of War" which is on par with the previous 2 good, but not special, songs and "The Ministry Of Lost Souls" which i think is great except that i sometimes find it hard to identify which song is playing at places in the middle. i guess thats a risk you'll have to take if you, like me, love "epic" pieces...

and, to round of the roller-coaster ride, we have Pt.2 which is the 3rd song over 10 minutes on the album and it doesnt dissappoint one bit. this is one of those songs that is so well constructed that it feels like its much shorter since its got your attention all the time...

dream on!