DISTANCE OVER TIME

2016's The Astonishing, a double concept album, was written in a way almost entirely unlike any preceding Dream Theater album, with Jordan Rudess and John Petrucci cloistering themselves away and writing the entire thing by themselves. On this album, the band return to the much more band-oriented approach that is more customary for them, with an intent on producing something tighter and heavier than that divisive piece.

This seems to do the trick. The Astonishing felt like Dream Theater trying their best to not sound like Dream Theater, because they'd become kind of tired of being Dream Theater; their self-titled album felt a bit like Dream Theater by numbers, resulting an album which was alright, but not exceptional. As they say, a change is as good as a rest; after indulging in the departure from the norm that The Astonishing represented, the band come to Distance Over Time sounding refreshed and more vibrant. There's just a bit more pep to their step this time, an extra dose of exuberance which feels like it went missing some time after A Dramatic Turn of Events. It's hard to put your finger on, but you can tell it's back as the album opener, Untethered Angel, roars forth.

That new commitment to tightness also extends to the songwriting and the album's overall length; there's several songs here under five minutes, and the whole thing is over and done in less than an hour. After the sprawling morass of The Astonishing, this is a relief. Although prog metal, like any other prog genre, is a field which thrives on excess and embraces long-form compositions, the actual secret to good prog is the same as the secret to getting the best in any other artistic endeavour: namely, editing. Songs like Paralyzed are short not because they lack for ideas, but because all the fat has been trimmed off them; they're lean, they're taut, they hit the notes they need to hit, they take a bow.

It's not another Images and Words - but it is the album that Dream Theater needed to make at this point in time to win back some fan confidence, and to breathe life back into their music.