BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS

Let's borrow a phrase from Paul Simon and remember all the crap we learned in high school. By today's "standards," crap is in the "minor league" of vulgarity. But in the seventies, this term was routinely deleted from radio broadcasts of "Kodachrome." Today, crap can refer to experience itself, and in my high school days the crap was multifarious: everything from the resignation of President Nixon, to the celebration of the Bicentennial, to the rise and initial fall of our beloved genre of progressive rock. Another mark of experience is the awareness that, quite often, divided opinion surrounds certain enduring products of the human spirit. My high school English teacher accentuated this view in response to the lack of appreciation of and / or mixed reactions to now highly regarded artistic efforts like T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. As a course paper, this teacher assigned to each of us the identification of and explication of a wasteland theme in some other work of literature. I was given permission to confront the lyrics of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's Karn Evil 9. My instructor gave me a B-, an A for content and an F for grammar. I wrote a stylistic sentence fragment without acknowledging it . . . . Experience also teaches that the human condition is characterized more by "both / and" and less by "either / or."

Or, in another rendering, "shades of gray" rather than "black and white" characterize human experience. It is rather fitting, then, that the latest album from Dream Theater bears the title, Black Clouds and Silver Linings. Our daily lives and rituals are marked by the gray, "both / and" character of the synthesis of "black clouds" and "silver linings."

We all know that a few, cursory listenings to most of the progressive albums held in high regard will not suffice. One's initial experiences with the lion's share of our favorite progressive albums can only lead to "either / or" responses. Earlier this summer, a reviewer questioned John Myung's participation on Black Clouds and Silver Linings. Had this bassist and original member left the band? According to this reviewer, Myung's performance was indiscernible. I think it is fair to remark that we devotees of progressive rock are conditioned to expect an almost lead role for the bass guitar. Paul McCartney, John Entwistle, Chris Squire, Mike Rutherford, Greg Lake, Geddy Lee, and, a bit later, John Myung have fashioned a dominant role for this "standard" instrument of the rhythm section. In the case of Dream Theater, two clear examples come to mind: Images and Word's "Metropolis - Pt. I 'The Miracle and the Sleeper'" and Scenes from a Memory Metropolis, Part II's "The Dance of Eternity."

For many of us, Chris Squire remains the leader of the august group of bassists above and their many associated peers. However, I remember the collective reactions in 1977, when Squire chose a more "conventional" role in the rhythm section of "Awaken." What had happened to his customary lead, Rickenbacker sound? "The only thing permanent is change itself." I submit that, once one really discerns Myung's cavernous, almost "plate tectonic" role on Black Clouds and Silver Linings, it is difficult to focus solely again on the ostensibly overt performances of the other band members. And, this "stealth bomber" approach has been part of Myung's repertoire all along; I'd suggest listening to "Pull Me Under" once again. We forget that, at times, the bass functions at a visceral, near inaudible level. Further, for those of us "raised" on "Heart of the Sunrise" and "Yours Is No Disgrace," we expect real motion on the fret board. Sometimes it is the right hand of the bassist that expresses the motion; here I point to "Wither." And, in sections of "The Count of Tuscany," "A Nightmare to Remember," and "Shattered Fortress," motion on the fret board reigns supreme.

In evaluating the album in its entirety, this is a solid effort, deserving of a high rating. I'd say on the ProgArchives scale, this is a borderline 4-5 star production. Sure, there are times when the lyrics aren't superlative. And, yes, there is some recycling of musical themes, rhythms, and motifs from the Dream Theater catalogue. Yet, this is a powerful excursion into the gray areas of human experience. Many have singled out "The Count of Tuscany" as the high point of the recording. I agree. In spirit and mood these nineteen plus minutes evoke Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Cask of Amontillado." Although the guest of "The Count" does not end up walled in by bricks to meet his death as Poe's Fortunato does in Montresor's wine cellar, Petrucci's storyteller certainly meets his mortality face to face. For that matter, to partake of this album is to experience death and its contribution to living, insisting we remember our forebears and our own (hopeful) contributions to humanity's legacy. Sadly, though, we often don't remember our own versions of the nightmares and mistakes that occupy much of the content of this album. Do we learn from our mistakes as Portnoy asks not only in "The Shattered Fortress," but also in the previous four installments of self-revelation begun with "The Glass Prison?"

There is also another element of crap from high school to which I'd like to refer: the lionization of the leading exponents of progressive rock. During the seventies, my friends and I displayed an "either / or" devotion to the music of Yes, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and Genesis that has mellowed into a subtler appreciation of more forms of musical expression. Let's face it; if we adopt an inflexible, "either / or" view, then all of the music of our heroes pales in the face of the sublime imaginative universes of J. S .Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Similarly, the most effective efforts of Jon Anderson, Greg Lake and Peter Sinfield, and Peter Gabriel are all "minor league" when held up to the creative cosmos of William Shakespeare, William Blake, and Wallace Stevens. And, my examples display a proclivity to the Western Tradition that, in itself, is an "either / or" approach.

Many have pointed out allusions in the lyrics of "Close to the Edge" to Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. Concretely, Anderson alludes to the river that provides Siddhartha with his opportunity to achieve a timeless / total view of ultimate reality that synthesizes all of the "either / or" aspects of his existence (monastic life vs. the life of commerce and trade; asceticism vs. sensuality; individuality vs. transcendence) into the perception of the river, that, always changing, somehow remains the same. To seek an "epiphany" with this river requires passage from the "either / or" through "both / and."

So, in the spirit of the grayness of human experience, I'd like to submit that, despite its long recognition at the top of the ProgArchives scale, Close to the Edge could one day yield its spot to an album like Tales from Topographic Oceans or to the song, "That, That is" from Keys to Ascension . Could a similar reappraisal occur of Images and Words and / or of Scenes from a Memory Metropolis, Part II?