ON THE BACKS OF ANGELS

I fully believe that music is emotion - so is the case when I first listened to this single from the upcoming Dream Theater album. This single stirs my emotion really well for two reasons. The first one is that the overall composition of this track is really wonderful and I would say it's a masterpiece as it combines beautifully the melody, harmony, changes of styles and bits of complexities into an excellent music. The opening part is basically an exploration of guitar fills by Petrucci. But when it flows in crescendo I can feel the soul of the music that has successfully blended symphonic prog into the music unlike most of recent compositions of DT that tended to be metal. I would say this song focuses more on progressive rock music without forgetting the roots of Dream Theater music which was metal. Musically I can sense the nuances of FORSAKEN in this single but in much more progressive style. I really enjoy this single especially it's good to see Rudess' inventive keyboard work throughout the song while the music still maintains excellent guitar riffs as musical roots of DT. If you observe this song in its subtleties you can sense that this song is based on progrock scheme augmented with heavy riffs. I keep listening this track over and over because I feel this track suits my taste.

Second reason is more on leadership issue around what's happening recently with the band with the departure of dominant drummer, Mike Portnoy. This song proves that his departure does not impact negatively to the band. This was what I predicted as I said in my blog, that his departure would not make significant negative impact to the band. Even the band is getting stronger, I believe. From leadership perspective, his departure was a great lesson for the rest of the band to take a better and stronger emotional bonding and revenge it with a positive result: a very good (read: better?) music composition than when MP was there. MP is now aware that actually he is not the best drummer and composer on planet Earth. We all knew that MP ruled the band so much and very dominant in the direction of the band. A friend of mine commented that from this single we can enjoy the tight basslines by Myung because in the past it was dominated by MP bass drum sounds. This mixing is better because Mike Mangini drumming (which sounds at par excellent with MP - no difference at all!!!) is balanced so that other instruments can be heard clearly. From this single we know that Dream Theater is still excellent without Mike Portnoy. Mr Portnoy made a BIG mistake to leave the band he founded.

Hope the full-length album has tracks as solid as this single. Keep on proggin' ...!!!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW.

Share this DREAM THEATER review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to Gatot
• Report this review (#474240)
• Buy DREAM THEATER music online with PA partners
• Show all DREAM THEATER MP3/Stream
• Go to DREAM THEATER page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to On the Backs of Angels page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for DREAM THEATER related discussions