METROPOLIS PART 2 - SCENES FROM A MEMORY

Beginning with the instantly recognisable ticking of a therapist's clock, the album starts very definitely. A voice then says "Close your eyes and begin to relax" - a great way to start an album if I might say and further emphasises the beginning. This song, "Regression", leads onto "Overture 1928", playing portions of all the songs to come later on much like Rush's 2112 Overture or Tommy's Overture by The Who. It will take me years to fully go through each track on the album so I'll just say parts of it.

The album as a whole goes through areas of "Light and Shade" with pounding metal riffs (in Strange Deja Vu) to relaxing peaceful ballads (in "Through Her Eyes"). After the Arabic-influenced "Home", my favourite piece of the album enters: "The Dance Of Eternity". This song is filled to the brim with extraordinary chord progressions, time signatures and a brilliant choice of instruments. The expertise of each musician is really shown here: Petrucci's guitar, Rudess' keyboards, Portnoy's drumming, and of course John Myung's insane bass solo. Echoing parts from Metropolis Part 1 from the "Images And Words" album.

The following song "One Last Time" changes excellently into the gentle piano song from Petrucci's distorted power chords. As the main character Nicholas gradually unravels the mystery of Victoria's death after a series of clues, he realises that Edward shot Victoria and is "Finally Free" from this memory tormenting him. Unfortunately, the story does not have a particularly happy ending, and the Hypnotherapist (turning out to be the reincarnated Edward) kills Nicholas (the reincarnated Victoria) again. I was hoping for a happy ending but this was actually a pretty nice way to wrap up the story (along with some great sound effects on "Finally Free").

A(+). Absolutely compulsory for any prog metal/heavy prog collector.

Regression - **** Overture 1928 - ***** Strange Deja Vu - ***** Through My Words - ***** Fatal Tragedy - **** Beyond This Life - **** Through Her Eyes - ***** Home - **** The Dance Of Eternity - ***** One Last Time - ***** The Spirit Carries On - ***** Finally Free - ****

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