IMAGES AND WORDS

There is something about Dream Theater's Major label debut that keeps me from reccomending it to newer fans. I'm not sure what it is, pehaps it's Mike Portnoy's Triggered snare drum, perhaps it's James Labrie's vocals, perhaps it's just too shiny and polished (read: 80's sounding) compared with the rest of their catalogue.

DT's Images and Words album is an interesting mix of great songs, even greater musicianship and very forgettable radio friendly drivel. This isn't to say it has no redeeming qualities, Pull me Under, Another Day, and Metropolis are all fantastic songs and are with the price of the CD. The Album fall short however when it comes to the other songs. I'm guessing that DT was still finding their sound when they released this, as the following album bears little resemblence to Images and Words.

Pull me Under: It's starts off with a very typical 80's sounding chorused guitar, and equally 80's sounding keyboard melody, but it actually quite a strong song, and it's easy to see why I got alot of airplay all those years ago. There's some really hot guitar on this track, well done guys.

Another Day: A pretty mellow "power ballad" type song, but with some beautiful sax playing that at first seem kind of left field for a band like this, but it soon becomes apparent how well it works in the context of the song. Very thoughtful meaninful lyrics as well, as it deals with the John Petrucci's father's battle with cancer.

Metropolis Pt.1: A shadow of things to come, a very "proggy" track, with some great instrumental passages, this has become something of a fan favourite at concerts. John Myung has a great, though short bass solo spot in the middle, great track and a real foreshadowing of where the band was going.

You can really just forget the rest of this album, I just can't "get into" any of the other songs on it.

Production wise the album sounds not too bad, remember, this is 1992 and producers are still obsessed with the triggered snare drum and 80's hair metal, so the album sounds kind of like it's from that era. The album does lose points for some really, really, REALLY annoying keyboard sounds in places, but it is easily ignored.

While in this review I haven't really delved into the songs too deeply, I can only reccomend it to fans that perhaps already have the Awake/Falling into Infinity albums and enjoy them. If you are strictly a "new" DT fan and have a deep love of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence or Train of Thought, stay far away.