Top 3 Dream Theater Albums

Cristi wrote: the Moore era

this!!

Awake and I&W second, post Kevin Moore DT never click on me

For me, A View is a big grower. The first time I heard it I was very underwhelmed, especially after all the immediacy of DoT. However, every time I play it back I get sucked into a section I hadn't considered previously, and the production just keeps getting better and better. Mangini's best performance and best sounding drums to date.

Train Of Thought

Awake

Change Of Seasons

I was just going to post the top two only but had to mention this EP that really was the first Prog Metal album I ever heard. The title track blew me away but there was some pretty cool covers on there as well. These guys can play! A guy I work with has had James LaBrie sign some stuff, they live in the same town about 40 minutes from where I live. Kevin LaBrie is his real name and what those who grew up with him still call him.

1 - Distance Over Time

2 - Train of Thought

3 - A View From The Top of the world

Awake is my absolute favorite. The playing is heavier than I&W, which I dig, and the lyrics much more personal deal with struggling with one's religion, which is always a good topic to explore in my book.  The songs and the atmospheres feel more ethereal to me, like cascading waves of emotion and passing through various stages of a dream, rather than the very composed nature of much of I&W. However it still retains that early DT enthusiasm and willingness to try anything that was on I&W as well. Sure, there's no really long concept piece like on 6 Degrees or Scenes, and no 20 minute epic like Octavarium or The Count Of Tuscany, and it isn't nearly as bright and colorful as I&W... but it makes up for all that for me in its fascinating depth. It's the kind of easy to overlook record of DT's golden years, but it's got it where it counts. Voices. 6:00. Lie. Space-Dye Vest. This is the sound of a band reaching for something beyond the reach of any other group on the planet at the time.

Plus, it's probably James best performance on record. This was the last album he did before his major vocal injury, which did some level of permanent damage and affected the way he sings even to this day, certainly weakening his ability to hit high notes with great facility.  I find the work he's done on all subsequent DT albums to be admirable and often very moving, and indeed some of it does better his vocals here. But overall there's not another full album length of James' singing that's as killer as this album. He pushed himself to emote more, to use more distortion and aggression where it made sense, and also I think to annunciate things a little bit more clearly than I&W, and it makes all the difference to my ears.

It's better than 6 Degrees though